THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS OF 
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E MESSIANIC HOPE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



MATHEWS 



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THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



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EDWAED CAPPS 
STAEK WILLARD CUTTING EOLLIN D. SALISBURY 

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HAVE ENCOURAGED THE SEARCH AFTER TRUTH 

IN ALL DEPARTMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE 



THE MESSIANIC HOPE IN THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 



THE MESSIANIC HOPE IN THE 
NEW TESTAMENT 



SHAILER MATHEWS 

OP THE DEPAETMENT OP STSTEMATIC THEOLOGY 



THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS 
SECOND SERIES VOLUME XH 



CHICAGO 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

1905 



LIBRARY of OONSRESS 
Two Copies (fecMveu 

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Copyright 1904 

BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



TO ERXEST DEWITT BURTON 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction. Historical Interpretation as a Precondition of 

Theological Reconstruction xvii-xx 

PART I. THE MESSIANISM OF JUDAISM 

Chapter I. The Social and National Messianism of the 

Prophets ------- 1 

The general character of the Hebrew hope before the Exile — 
The hope of the Exile — The new idealism of the Return — 
The elements of later messianism. 

Chapter II. The Politico-Social Program of Revolutionary 

Messianism ------ H 

The two messianic hopes — The political hope from Judas to 
Herod I. — Zealotism and the fall of the Jewish state. 

Chapter III. The Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 21 

Section I. The Rise of Apocalyptic : The Day of Jehovah — 
The origin of apocalyptic. 

Section II. The Apocalypse as a Means of Transition from 
Political to Transcendental Messianism : The Pharisees and 
apocalyptic — The elements of the new literature — The new 
transcendental nationalism. 

Section III. The Messianism of the Earlier Apocalyptic : 
Ethiopic Enoch — The Book of Jubilees — The Psalms of 
Solomon. 

Section IV. The Transcendental Messianism of Later Phari- 
saism : The Assumption of Moses — The Secrets of Enoch — 
The Apocalypse of Baruch and 4 Esdras — Inconsistencies 
in the literature — The Wisdom, of Solomon — The eschato- 
logical summum honum of pharisaism. 

Section V. The Essential Elements of Eschatological Mes- 
sianism : The seven messianic elements common to the 
apocalyptic literature. 

PART II. THE MESSIANISM OF JESUS 

Chapter I. Critical Presuppositions ----- 57 
The two classes of sources of the synoptic gospels — General 
principles for use of sources — The Fourth Gospel. 
xi 



xii Table of Contents 

Chapter II. The Messianism of John the Baptist - - 62 
Parallelism between the messianism of John and the Phari- 
sees — The new teachings of John — The non-social empha- 
sis of John. 

Chapter III. The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus 67 

I. The Two Aspects of this Teaching: (1) Non-eschatological 

elements — (2) Survivals of pharisaic eschatological 

messianism in the teaching of Jesus. 

II. Both Conceptions Authentic : (1) Arguments intended to 

show that the eschatology of Jesus is not authentic 

— (2) Arguments intended to show that the non- 
eschatological elements are not authentic. 

III. The Harmonization of the Data : The apocalyptic ele- 

ment if authentic not merely figurative — The escha- 
tological concept primary — The two senses in which 
Jesus taught that the kingdom was present. 

IV. Summary. 

Chapter IV. Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah - 84 
I. The Arguments against Such a Self-Interpretation : The 
failure to distinguish between the recognition of Jesus 
as Christ and the recognition of his deeds as messianic 

— The unjustifiable rejection of the Fourth Gospel. 
II. The Data Establishing the Messianic Self-Interpretation 

of Jesus : The Baptism — The messianic message and 
the Four — The testimony of the demoniacs — The 
reply to John the Baptist — The address at Nazareth 

— Caesarea Philippi — The later teaching — The tri- 
umphal entry — The apocalyptic discourses — The Last 
Supper — The confession at the trials. 

III. The Self-Designations of Jesus: "The Son of man" — 
" Christ"— " Son of God." 

Chapter V. The Content of the Messianic Self-Conscious- 
ness -------- 108 

I. The Modifications Made by Jesus in Pharisaic Mes- 
sianism : (1) His break with pharisaism as a system — 
(2) His teaching concerning God as Father — (3) His 
rejection of " the Son of David " as a messianic con- 
cept — (4) Messianic universalism — (5) The suffering 
Christ — (6) The resurrection of the Christ. 
II. In What Sense Did Jesus Regard Himself as Christ? 
An eschatological Christ — His adjustment of this 



Table of Contents xiii 

self -interpretation to his historical career — The sig- 
nificance of his death — Messiahship as a concept for 
expressing his self-consciousness. 

Chapter VI. The Essential Elements in the Messianism of 

Jesus ------- 120 

The Normative Value of Results Thus Far Obtained. 
I. Not a Question between Inherited and Original Con- 
cepts : The permanent elements in eschatology — Life 
in the light of an impending eternity. 
II. Messianism Not the Fundamental Element in the Teach- 
ing of Jesus : His re-emphasis of prophetic ethics — 
The Fatherliness of God. 

III. Messiahship as a Synonym of Incarnation : The life in 

and by the Spirit — The messianic title a concept to 
express a divine self -consciousness — The personality 
of Jesus, thus interpreted, the ultimate fact in histori- 
cal Christianity. 

IV. The Distinction between the Permanent and the Inter- 

pretive Elements in the History of Jesus : The 
self-consciousness of Jesus seen through inherited 
self-appellations. 
V. Summary : The experience of Jesus the criterion of his 
teaching. 

PART III. THE MESSIANISM OF THE APOSTLES 

Chapteb I. The Messianism of Primitive Christianity - - 137 
Loose Definitions of the Term " Primitive Christianity." 
I. Acts as a Source of Our Knowledge of Primitive Christi- 
anity: The survivals of Jewish messianism in the 
teaching of Peter — The new elements in Christian 
messianism : the Holy Spirit and the vicarious death 
of the Christ. 
II. The Messianic Hope in 1 Peter — The Judaistic survivals 
and the new elements. 

III. The Messianism of the Epistle of James. 

IV. The Apocalypse of John : Its consonance with Jewish 

apocalyptic messianism — Historical identifications — 
Its similarities with primitive Christian hopes 

Chapter II. The Eschatological Messianism of Paul - - 163 
I. The Pauline Messianism Grounded in That of Judaism : 
Comparison of material. 



xiv Table of Contents 

II. The Changes Made by the Apostle in His Inherited 
Hopes : The significance of the death of the Christ^ 
As to the Parousia. 
III. Eschatology as a Controlling Factor of Paulinism. 

Chapter III. Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism - 177 

I. Universal Guilt: The Pauline doctrine of sin conditioned 
by a psychology — <Tdp^ and Tvev/xa — Sin. 

II. Death as the Punishment of Sin : Definition of the term. 
III. Salvation as Related to the Entire Personality : The 

insuflBciency of a merely ethical interpretation. 
IV. The Pauline Christology : The pre-existence, incarnation, 
^ and final position of the Christ. 

V. Justification as Acquittal at the Coming Judgment : The 
formal thought — The assurance born of Christian 
experience. 
VI. The Atonement Wrought by the Death of the Christ: 
The death of Christ an historical rather than a meta- 
physical fact — As an aid to faith. 
VII. Various Details of the Pauline Eschatology : As a whole 
it is a generalization of the apostle's knowledge of the 
risen Christ — Paul's reticence on certain points due to 
the same knowledge. 
VIII. Summary. 

Chapter IV. The New Life in Christ according to Paul - 206 

I. Reconciliation and Sonship, Matters of Fact: Ethical 
implications of faith in Jesus as Christ — The "gift of 
the Spirit" in the Jerusalem church. 
II. The Work of the Spirit: The gifts — The "Charismata" 
— The new life in the Spirit conceived of (1) eschato- 
logically and (2) dynamically — Ethical autonomy in 
Paulinism — Messianic formulas for the new life. 

III. Summary. 

Chapter V. The Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity - 224 

I. The Editorial Element in the Synoptic Gospels: (1) 
Tendencies toward messianic precision. (2) The 
preference for the miraculous. (3) The messianic 
interpretation of the Old Testament. (4) Eschatology. 

(5) The vicarious interpretation of the death of Jesus. 

(6) The miraculous birth of Jesus. (7) Variant stories 
of resurrection. 



Table of Contents xv 

II. The Epistle to the Hebrews : General messianic schema 
— The Christ as the High Priest — The reinterpreta- 
tion of messiahship — Faith. 
III. The Johannine Literature : (1) The authorship of the 
Fourth Gospel— Eternal life — Jesus as the incarnate 
logos. (2) The Epistles of John. 
IV. 2 Peter and Jude. 
V. Summary. 

PART IV. CHRISTIAN MESSIANISM AND THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION 

Chapter I. The Messianic Fraternity ----- 255 

Early Christian History as a Corroboration of Results Thus Far 
Obtained. 

I. Judaism as the Forerunner of Christianity: The "Col- 
legia" and fraternities of the Roman Empire — The 
dispersions — The influence of Judaism on the empire 
— The first Christian communities. 
II. The Church : The church in the teaching of Jesus — Its 
character in early Christianity — Its development and 
oflB.cers — The supremacy of the Holy Spirit. 

III. The Church as the " Body of Christ." 

IV. Society as Such Not to be Saved. 

Chapter II. The Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age - 274 

I. Non-Revolutionary Character of Apostolic Christianity: 
The practical problem before the apostles — The 
purpose of the apostolic ethics — Christian courage. 
II. The Attitude of the Christian to the World : Not asceti- 
cism — The questions of social equality and social 
customs — The supremacy of love. 
III. Apostolic Ethics Limited to the Church : Reasons for its 
indifference to social regeneration : (1) the chrismata ; 
(2) eschatological expectations — The new life not to 
be thus restrained. 

Chapter III. The Family and the Age - - - - 289 

I. The Problem of Marriage in the Early Church: The 
morality of the empire — Marriage and "the end of 
the age" — The apostolic elevation of the pure life. 

II. The Family : The position of woman — Divorce — Parental 
authority — Temporal character of the teaching. 

III. Summary. 



xvi Table of Contents 

Chapter IV. The Economic and Political Bearing of the 

New Life ------- 301 

The Commercial Environment of Early Christianity. 

I. Concerning Wealth : The teaching of Jesus — Charity — 
Suspicion of the rich — The influence of eschatology. 
II. Concerning the State : The teaching of Jesus and the 
practice of the early church — Temporal character of 
apostolic political teaching — Eschatological expecta- 
tion versus Christian life. 

Summary - - - - - - - -- - - 317 

Index of Subjects --------- 325 

Index of References -------- 329 



INTRODUCTION 

Theological reconstruction that shall in any true 
measure be based upon the New Testament is dependent, 
not only upon strictly philological exegesis, but also upon 
that larger historical exegetical process that endeavors to 
separate the content of a correctly apprehended teaching 
from the historical form in which it is cast. It is only 
when this form is resolved that the content stands clear, 
and it is in the content of biblical teaching alone that men 
of today can feel more than an antiquarian interest. To 
make the form co-ordinate with the content is to perpetuate 
an outgrown method and vocabulary. Theological teachers 
cannot hope to have modern significance if they force their 
followers first of all to think as did men of the past and to 
express truth as did men of the past. Theologians, of all 
men, should not be anachronistic. 

How generally recognized this view has become in 
practical teaching may be seen in the abandonment of some 
of the most explicit directions of the New Testament on the 
ground that they were intended primarily and exclusively 
for Christians in some city like Corinth. Thus, for instance, 
few teachers would today assert that women should not 
speak in meetings, or that there was any divine regulation 
concerning the length of a Christian's hair. At the same 
time, these same teachers would assert that the general 
principles of orderly conduct and modest deportment which 
found expression in the apostle's directions to Grseco- 
Roman Christians are as applicable to the Christians of 
today as to those of nineteen hundred years ago. In a 
much larger way the same statement applies to the Mosaic 
legislation. The teacher of today must endeavor to main- 

xvii 



xviii Introduction 



tain such of its underlying principles as are not outgrown 
by a Christian civilization, while distinguishing and rejecting 
their particular and historical embodiment. 

All this, the outcome of the practical considerations of 
Christian experience, is, however, but one phase of a very 
inclusive matter, viz., such a treatment of the Scriptures, 
and especially of the New Testament, as will enable one 
easily and with reasonable accuracy to distinguish between 
the truth and its biblical expression. Or, to put the matter 
a little differently, the presupposition of all theological 
reconstruction is the existence of criteria which shall enable 
one to distinguish the concepts and processes which con- 
ditioned the biblical writers from the religious experience 
and truth which admittedly constitute the real substance of 
what we call revelation. 

Such criteria will be found among the thoughts and con- 
cepts current in the biblical period. Not that all such 
thoughts and concepts were consciously used as merely 
formal. More probably many, if not all, of them were 
believed to embody as well as to typify realities. There 
can be no doubt, for instance, that the ancient world actually 
believed that the earth is flat, and that the sun actually 
moves across the heavens. Such a cosmology has far- 
reaching effects in biblical theology, and must be allowed for 
in every case. There are many passages in both Testaments 
which a man under the influence of today's cosmic truths 
must have great difficulty in understanding. Similarly, 
many religious concepts, which to later ages have seemed 
very crude and naive, were regarded as essential truth 
by the men of the first Christian century. The criterion is, 
therefore, not the valuation accorded a given concept by 
those who used it, but the actual existence of that concept. 
If it be urged that such current concepts may be essentially 
as well as formally true, the only reply for the historical inter- 



INTBODUCTION xix 



preter can be an assent to the possibility. Such concepts 
may be essential; they may be formal; they may con- 
ceivably be both. Yet periods which may care to reproduce 
the truths embodied in these concepts cannot be content to 
remain in such uncertainty, and will attempt, at least, to 
distinguish between the two possible valuations of the 
current beliefs of the past. The first step in the historical 
process, however, is not this distinction, which in fact is 
apologetic rather than historical, but is a formulation and an 
exact estimate of the place any concept holds in a given 
system of thought. After such an estimate is gained, one 
may well decide as to its formal or essential character. By 
that time the decision should have become reasonably easy. 
If the concept appears to be wholly a priori^ in no clear way 
expressive of facts of experience, but is rather the outgrowth 
of rhetoric, faith, hope, and other emotions; and if it appears 
chiefly as interpretative and appreciative of what is obviously 
experience and personality ; and especially if the concept in 
question be one that obviously is derived from a cosmogony 
or a theology that does not square with historical and 
scientific facts and processes ; it will not be difficult to give 
it its true value and significance for the constructive and 
systematizing processes. But the historical process can 
never be overlooked. We must discover what a concept 
actually was, and then discover whether it is present in the 
documents under consideration. 

Among all the concepts that appear in the New Testa- 
ment none is more frequently met than that of messianism. 
Nor is there one more obviously local and ethnic. The 
hope of a divine deliverance from misery was not a product 
of classical religion or of Grseco-Roman eclecticism. In the 
form current in the first century of our era it was not even 
Hebrew. It was Jewish, and, in its most elaborate form, 
pharisaic. That it should appear in New Testament litera- 



XX Introduction 



ture was inevitable, for it was the medium through which 
his followers looked at Jesus, the form in which they 
expressed their appreciation of him, and the warp of all 
their speculation as to his and their own future. What, 
then, is its actual place in the teaching of the early church ? 
How far is it formal, how far is it essential, Christianity? 

In attempting to answer these inquiries, the method 
which will be followed will be that of historical exegesis. 
We shall first of all attempt to discover and formulate the 
elements of eschatological messianism as it is found in the 
literature of Judaism ; in the second place, we shall examine 
the New Testament to see how much or how little of this 
element is to be found on its pages ; and, in the third place, 
we shall attempt to determine the influence of such an 
element in Christian thought, and as far as possible to dis- 
cover what would be the result upon historical Christianity 
if it were removed or, more properly speaking, allowed for. 



PAKT I 

THE MESSIANISM OP JUDAISM 



CHAPTER I 

THE SOCIAL AND NATIONAL MESSIANISM OF THE 
PROPHETS 

Messianism — or, if only the expression has not assumed 
the too distinct connotation of an expected personal Messiah, 
the messianic hope — is that fixed social belief of the Jewish 
people that Jehovah would deliver Israel and erect it into a 
glorious empire to which a conquered world would be sub- 
ject. It sometimes, indeed frequently, involved the hope of 
a personal king — the Messiah, the Anointed One of God — 
but such an element is far less essentiaP than is implied by 
the term itself or its synonym, "the messianic hope." The 
central and ever-present element of the "messianic hope" 
was that of a divinely established deliverance and king- 
dom. The king was but an accessory, and, as will appear 
later, might not figure, except by implication, in one's hope 
for the nation's future.^ Nor, even with this limitation as to 
its elements, was messianism any fixed concept. Rather it 
was ever developing. The child of the prophet's faith in 
Jehovah's care for an oppressed Israel, it soon ceased to 
share in the peculiar spirit of its parent, and, like nomism, 
the other great characteristic of Judaism, passed far beyond 

1 A personal Messiah is lacking, or at the best very indistinct, for instance, in 
Joel; Wisdom of Sirach, chap. 33; Isaiah, chaps. 24^7; Daniel; in much of Ethiopic 
Enoch; Book of Jubilees; Assumption of Moses. Other Jewish literature might be 
quoted. The list given by Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestament- 
lichen Zeitalter, p. 209, possibly overemphasizes the absence of the personal element. 

2 This discrimination is vital for an understanding of the rOle played by messi- 
anism as a socialized concept. The statement of Wendt {Teaching of Jesus, Vol. I, 
p. 69) is true only with this modification : " The expectation of the Messiah was with- 
out doubt widely prevalent among the Jews in the time of Jesus, but it was not quite 
universal and free from doubt.'' The remainder of the paragraph in question puts 
the matter more precisely. So, too {ibid., p. 180), he says truly: ''The Messiah was 
always conceived as the means whereby the kingdom of God was to be set up." 

3 



4 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the limits set by precedent and experience. To understand 
the original form taken by Christianity, it is necessary to 
sketch this development and to distinguish between those 
elements of faith common to all expressions of the hope, and 
the fancies or teachings peculiar to the various writings in 
which it has been preserved. 

From the time that the first Hebrew dared to speak forth 
in Jehovah's name and promise his downtrodden fellow- 
countrymen divine deliverance from all their complaints, the 
Jewish race mitigated political oppression with ideal utopias. 
Primitive enough were these hopes in some of their aspects, 
fit products of a cruel and barbarous age. A conquering 
Israel, a Davidic king, a suppliant, terrorized, tortured 
world — these were the dreams which Jehovah was to make 
real. But, as prophecy advanced in its religious and ethical 
content, there was associated with this elemental opti- 
mism an ever-growing sense of Israel's moral and religious 
isolation. As a consequence, although barbarity still dis- 
played itself in all forecasts of the future of heathendom, 
ethical ideals were infused into the hopes for the triumph of 
Israel. As the Hebrew religion grew moral, so the Hebrew 
Utopias grew religious. Compared with the hopes of New 
Testament times, it is true, they were lacking in those tran- 
scendental elements that are commonly associated with mes- 
sianism, but they were none the less of the same general 
nature. That they were full of social content is clear from 
the Hebrew literature,^ even if many elements in early litera- 
ture be attributed to the prophetic spirit of later editors. 
The historical basis of the messianic ideal was the glorious 
reign of David and Solomon, and in the pictures of the ideal 
kings given in the '"royal" psalms^ there beats the inextin- 

1 For the collection of these sayings see Goodspeed, IsraeVs Messianic Hope 
(with good bibliography); Delitzsch, Messianic Prophecies; Huhn, Die messia- 
nischen Weissagungen. 

2 Pss. 2 :2-4;7-10; 45; 72 ; 110. Cf. Goodspeed, op. cit., pp. 72, 73. 



Messianism of the Prophets 



guishable optimism of a nation's faith in a divinely assured 
future. Early prophets, like Elijah and Elisha, saw in the 
religious and political crises resulting from the division of 
the kingdom of Solomon an opportunity to urge higher 
national ideals upon both the masses and the court. The 
calamities that threatened Israel, even during the brilliant 
reign of Jeroboam II., served as texts, not only for the dark 
forebodings of Amos, but for Hosea's prophecies of pros- 
perity and peace that would come to the remnant of the 
nation when once it turned from idols and foreign alliances 
to a forgiving Jehovah.^ In the disasters and miseries that 
came to both kingdoms during the days of Tiglath-pileser III., 
Sargon, and Sennacherib, Isaiah unfolded to Judah a religio- 
international policy that promised national deliverance and 
prosperity under a divinely appointed king,^ and, as if to 
guarantee the certainty of the new nation, he set about the 
preparation of a "remnant" which should be its nucleus.^ 
Micah also promised an empire to a faithful nation.* That 
Judah refused to listen to the words of these prophets makes 
all the more evident the social and political elements in their 
discourses. In fact, even if one should overlook the elabo- 
rate social provisions of Deuteronomy, prophetism, as a 
whole, was concerned with a regenerate Hebrew nation and 
a righteous king. That against which it cried out was such 
matters as the oppression of the poor, the formation of great 
landed estates, luxury, avarice, international policies, and 
national bad faith. Yet in denunciation there is the per- 
sistent trust in the nation's God. Even after the fading of 
Isaiah's promised future, Jeremiah, convinced though he was 
that Judah must certainly fall before the Chaldeans, yet 

1 For instance, Hos. 2 : 19-23 ; 14 : 1-8. 

2 Isa. 2 : 2-4 ; 4 : 2-6 ; 9 : 2-7 ; 11 : 1-9 ; 19 : 19-25. « Isa. 8 : 16-18. 

^ Mic. 4 : 1-5. The relevancy of these passages will depend upon one's acceptance 
of them as pre-exilic. If they are post-exilic, the appropriate passages in the text 
should naturally be expunged. 



6 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

looked beyond the approaching captivity to a restoration of 
the nation. Jehovah had made a new covenant with his 
people/ and his law was to be planted deep in their hearts as 
an inward guide. While it is true that the prophet does not 
describe in detail ideal institutions, it is clear from his 
denunciation of economic oppression^ that just social condi- 
tions must have figured largely in his conception of the new 
covenant and the restored state. 

With the exile this religio-political messianic hope, thus 
far so general and impersonal, passed into a new stage. The 
misery suffered by the Jews deported to Babylon, and the 
wonder that Jehovah could permit so great national and indi- 
vidual suffering, resulted in the formation of that pious 
remnant which Isaiah and Jeremiah had foreseen. Out 
from the misery there sprang fresh faith in a rapidly ap- 
proaching divine deliverance. Ezekiel in Babylon planned 
a new commonwealth centered about a temple rebuilt with 
extravagant splendor. Eeligious as the hope of the exile 
was, and formally non-messianic as the Priestly Code un- 
doubtedly is,^ each was none the less social,* and never more 
so than when the sorrows of the good men of the nation 
were distinctly made vicarious^ for the nation itself. In no 

1 Jer. 31 : 31-34 ; 33 : 17-22. 3 Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 319. 

2 J er. 7 : 1-15. 4 Ezek. 11 : 14-20 ; 37 : 21-28. 

5 Isa. 52 : 13— 53: 12. The interpretation of this passage, so generally considered 
by Christians as applicable to Jesus, in Jewish literature is social ; the sufferer is 
not the Christ, but Israel, either a nation or the pious scribes (Bab. Siphri, 486 ; Bab. 
Berach., oa and 576; Sota, 14a,' Jer. Shekualim^ iSc; Bereshith Eabba, 20, 1) in Israel 
{cf. Justin, Dial. Trypho.,122, 123; Oeigen, Ag. Celsus, I, 55). The reference of San., 
986, according to Edeesheim (Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II, p. 741), is to the Messiah as 
the " leprous one of the house of Rabbi." But this is from the second or third cen- 
tury, and represents the opinion of only a school of rabbis. See Dalman, Der 
leidende und der sterbende Messias, pp. 28 f. Cf. also Budde, '' The So-called ' Ebed- 
Yahweh Songs ' and the Meaning of the Term ' Servant of Yahweh ' in Isaiah, Chaps . 
40-55," Amer. Journal of Theology, Vol. Ill, pp. 499 f . ; Montefioke, Hibbert Lec- 
tures, pp. 278 f. ; Chbyne, Prophecies of Isaiah, Vol. II, Essays iii-v; Weight, 
"Pre-Christian Jewish Interpretation of Isa. lii-liv," Expositor, June, 1888; Neu- 
bauee-Deivee, Catena of Jewish Interpretations of Isa. liii. There is at present a 
considerable tendency (e. g., Duhm, Sellin) toward an individualistic, or at least non- 
social, interpretation. The Servant is the typical good man whose sufferings are 
inexplicable from the point of view of nomism, unless they are vicarious. On the 
other hand, Giesbbeecht, Der Knecht Jahves des Deuterojesaia, holds that the 
Servant is Israel as a nation. 



Messianism of the Prophets 



other literature has the problem of national and communal 
suffering been more nobly faced and answered. 

Throughout this period of prophetic optimism there ran 
a developing social theory that at last was to be incorporated 
in an actual society. At the outset the prophets had thought 
of the nation as a whole; Isaiah saw that the *' remnant" 
alone carried with it the future; Jeremiah, though still 
hoping for the "remnant," saw also the religious and social 
importance of the individual; Ezekiel, appreciating as per- 
haps no other Hebrew the value of the individual, began a 
new process of national reconstruction. No longer looking 
to the nation, or even the remnant, as the unit, he attempted 
to bring all godly individuals into the godly remnant, and 
this, in turn, into a glorious nation under holy priests and a 
Davidic king. Thus the cycle of ideals was completed. 
Nothing remained except to bring these ideals of Ezekiel 
and the pious men of the exile into an actual commonwealth. 
And that it attempted this is perhaps the greatest signifi- 
cance of the-event known as the Return. 

When, through the favor of the Persian Cyrus, Judea 
again took something like its old place in the world, it was 
with the determination on the part of its reconstructors to 
found a theocratic state in which a completed Thorah was to 
regulate all matters of social life. But this was simply to 
embody the formulation of prophetic ideals ; and this is only 
to say that the Return was an attempt to institutionalize pro- 
phetic messianism. Such an attempt was, in fact, all but 
inevitable. The prophets had expected that the divine 
deliverance would consist in the establishment of a Hebrew 
nation as untranscendental as Assyria and Egypt, its con- 
federates,^ and through the agency of no more miraculous 
intervention than would be involved in any political read- 
justment like the triumph of Assyria"' or of Cyrus. ^ 

1 Isa. 19 : 19-25. 2 Isa. 10 : 5. 3 Isa. 44 : 28 ; 45 : 1. 



8 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

The righteousness that was to characterize this new Israel 
was that elaborated in the later code, and obviously was 
thought of as involving all social relations. How else can 
one estimate the appearance of the Levitical code, the cove- 
nant not only to maintain the temple and its worship, but 
also to avoid mixed marriages, not to trade with "the people 
of the land" on the sabbath or a holy day, to let the land 
periodically lie fallow, to observe the sabbatical year, and 
not to exact payment of certain debts ?^ Throughout the 
entire course of this early legalism there runs the same 
idealism in hope and practice. 

But we are not limited to such evidence of an attempt to 
institutionalize messianism. In the prophecies that may 
reasonably be assigned to this period the significance of the 
new commonwealth is described in messianic colors. In no 
other prophets is the certainty of national deliverance and 
prosperity through Jehovah's presence more emphasized. 
The one prerequisite is the observance of the Thorah by the 
individual and the maintenance of the temple by the nation.^ 
Then, too, appeared that hope which was to play so great a 
role in early Christianity, that in those days so soon to 
dawn Jehovah would send his spirit upon a pious Israel to 
inspire new prophetic zeal and visions.^ The coronation of 
Zerubbabel seemed to Haggai and Zechariah the fulfilment 
of the promise of a prince from the house of David,* and 
thus one more feature in the messianic kingdom. The Judah 
of the Eeturn was to be the fulfilment of the prophets' prom- 
ises. A state was to be founded in which all social life was 
to be regulated by the divine Thorah. 

Of the history of the ineffectual ideal commonwealth 

1 Neh. 10 : 29-31. Possibly this is also the thought of the Pharisee who wrote the 
Assumption of Moses. See especially chaps. 3-5. 

2 Hag. 1:13; 2:6-9; Zech. 2:1-5, 10-13; 8:1-8, 12, 20-23; and especiaUy Isa. 60: 
1-22. 

3 Joel2:28,29. * Hag. 2:23; Zech. 3:8; 4:6-10; see also 6 : 11, 12. 



Messianism of the Prophets 9 

which grew out of this hope it is not necessary to speak. 
Nor indeed are we in a position to trace its career with 
any certainty. Early Judaism is all but hidden in its own 
literatureless career. The few facts preserved by Josephus 
do not enable us to picture satisfactorily any of its phases, 
and we are forced to be content with conjecture and ingen- 
ious reconstructions.^ If we were to judge of the time 
only by the "Wisdom" literature which may fairly be 
ascribed to it, we should be led to believe that the Jewish 
spirit had become philosophical, without enthusiasm for 
revealed law, and, with all its moral earnestness, callous as 
to religious idealism. Yet such a judgment would be one- 
sided. The transition from a renascent Hebraism to the 
new Judaism was marked by tendencies quite other than 
those toward philosophical Hellenism. These obscure years 
were in truth critical, for in them were developed tendencies 
that later were to result in the new Jewish world of the New 
Testament epoch. It was then that the new Hellenizing 
aristocracy of wealth, later to be known as the Sadducees, 
was founded in the family of that extraordinary adventurer, 
Joseph.^ Then, too, began that scrupulous devotion to the 
Thorah which was later to give religious history one of its 
most interesting figures, the Pharisee. 

Yet, as regards materials for tracing the development of 
messianism, these years are sadly deficient. Indeed, it is 
hard to discover that there was any such hope in a glorious 
future for Judea as would merit being called messianic. 
Doubtless, if it were possible to picture the faith that survived 
among the humble folk that afterward were known as the 
Pious, it would appear that the idealism which brought about 
the Eeturn was by no means dead. It is impossible to 
believe that the outburst of messianic literature that fol- 
lowed the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes would have 

1 For instance, Cheyxe, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. ^Ant, xii, 4. 



10 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

been possible without some widespread religious hope. Cer- 
tainly, the new Judaism that rose when once the party of 
the Pharisees had differentiated itself from the Pious and 
the Sadducees, found ready to its hand all the elements of 
later messianism. There were (1) the ineradicable belief 
that Jehovah would re-establish the Jewish nation in inde- 
scribable glory, and (2) under a "legitimate" monarch, a 
son of David; (3) the equally fixed belief that he would 
judge the world and punish with indescribable sufferings 
the enemies of his chosen nation, and, though this is less 
clear, the wicked generally, whether gentiles or Jews. (4) 
A fourth element, the belief in a resurrection of the dead, 
indistinctly associated with the establishment of a regener- 
ate Israel, can easily be overemphasized, but was undoubt- 
edly present, at first in a somewhat figurative sense — the 
resurrection of a defunct state. It was this hope that later 
was to develop into an entire eschatology. 

Such a catalogue of elements subsequently synthesized it 
would have been impossible to find in any other nation than 
that of the Jews. The fact that none of them was novel in 
the last pre-Christian century argues the persistence, so far 
as Palestine itself is concerned, of the prophetic idealism 
across these years of almost unbroken literary barrenness. 
And this idealism was, in the New Testament period, to 
follow two lines of development. There was, first, the revo- 
lutionary messianism of the masses ; and, second, the ecshato- 
logical messianism of the literary classes, notably the 
Pharisees. Both hopes were implicit in the prophetic mes- 
sianism of the pre-Maccabean age, but the former, alone 
following more closely the spirit of earlier prophetism, con- 
stituted something like a genuinely religio-social movement. 
The messianism of the Pharisees, on the other hand, follow- 
ing rather the apocalyptic tendency first really distinct in 
the Maccabean period, grew scholastically religious and 
quite without social content. 



CHAPTER II 

THE POLITICO-SOCIAL PROGRAM OF REVOLUTIONARY 
MESSIANISM 

While it is true that under the pressure of political mis- 
ery both transcendental and revolutionary messianism differ- 
entiated themselves simultaneously in Judaism, it was the 
latter that remained the more conservative. Development 
is limitless within the region of such speculation as went to 
constitute the pseudepigraphic literature of apocalyptic, but 
in social movements hopes are tempered by experience. 
Further, the thoughts and hopes of the masses are always 
difficult to trace, but doubly so when, as among the Jews, 
they are all but unexpressed in literature and must generally 
be inferred from references in an unfriendly historian like 
Josephus. None the less, popular messianism deserves more 
attention than could be accorded it as long as no distinction 
was made between messianism as a regulative social concept 
and as a hope for a personal Messiah. It is difficult to show 
that the latter was universally cherished in the time of 
Jesus, but the hope for a new Israel, delivered and ruled by 
God, was always and everywhere in evidence. Throughout 
the entire period from Judas Maccabseus to the fall of 
Jerusalem, this hope of a new Israel was never suppressed, 
and at last became utterly uncontrollable. But revolution 
was not in the program of the literati or the well-to-do 
classes. It is, indeed, no unstriking parallelism that might 
be drawn between the different effects produced by English 
philosophy upon the literary circles and the masses of 
France during the eighteenth century, and the two manifes- 
tations of messianism among the scribes and the despised 

11 



12 The Messianio Hope in the New Testament 

'a?w liaarets of Judaism during New Testament times. In 
both these pre -revolutionary epochs the radicalism of the liter- 
ary circles, quite content with a policy of laissez-faire, was 
opposed to struggle, while the discontent of the masses, when 
once it had appropriated the watchwords and philosophy of 
the literary world, undertook to bring into actual existence 
a future which the comfortable middle class was quite ready 
to intrust to providence. Only, unlike the philosophers of 
France, in Judea the Pharisees had no keen interest even in 
reform, and the masses had no need to wait for the slow 
infiltration of ideas which they, as well as the Pharisees, 
had received as a common inheritance from their past. 

It is commonly held that the messianic hope is wanting 
in 1 Maccabees, and this is true if one looks only for distinct 
references to an expected messianic king. The only approach 
to such a hope is to be seen in expectation of the prophet who 
was to come and solve riddles ; ^ but, as is now pretty generally 
held, this prophet is certainly not the Messiah, but one like 
those of the old Hebrew days who was expected to appear 
and give a perplexed people infallible directions for conduct.^ 
None the less, it is not improbable that the author of 1 Mac- 
cabees, like the authors of Judith, Tobit, and Baruch, expected 
a divine deliverance of Israel as well as a punishment of the 
heathen, and it is very probable that, in the spirit of the ap- 
proximately contemporary portions of the Sibylline Oracles, 
though regarding David's dynasty as perpetual,^ he saw in 
the Asmonean house something more than a family of suc- 
cessful adventurers. In fact, he expressly gives them a mes- 
sianic significance in the general sense of playing a part 
in the divine program for regenerating Israel, when he 

1 For example, the disposition of the stones of the polluted altar of burnt-sacri- 
fice (1 Mace. 4 : 46) and the adjustment of the new Asmonean priestly dynasty with 
the claims of the house of Zadok (1 Mace. 14 : 41. Cf. also 1 Mace. 9 :27). 

2 Cf. Mark 6 : 15 ; 8 : 28, where the prophet is sharply distinguished from the 
Christ. 

31 Mace. 2:57. 



Program of Revolutionary Messianism 13 

explains the defeat of certain emulators of Judas. They 
were "not of the seed of the men by whose hand deliverance 
was given unto Israel." ^ As has already been said, there is 
certainly nothing improbable in the conjecture that the pre- 
suppositions lying back of such a comment are near akin 
to that hope and faith that found expression in the con- 
temporary literature of Daniel and Enoch. Doubtless the 
disappointment over the later Asmoneans felt by the pharisaic 
author of the Psalms of Solomon^ was due in no small 
degree to the striking contrast between hopes cherished by 
his party in its earlier stages and the actual history of the 
descendants of John Hyrcanus. In this experience, as may 
later appear, is one very probable explanation for the subse- 
quent refusal of the Pharisees to place confidence in any- 
thing less than superhuman catastrophic messianism. Cer- 
tainly this is the dominant teaching of 2 Maccabees, itself a 
sort of pharisaic reply to the realism of 1 Maccabees. God 
is sure to render judgment upon the oppressors of Israel, 
and assures eternal life at least to pious Hebrews.^ 

The reign of Herod I. was not conducive to even apocalyp- 
tic messianic hopes, much less to any attempt to establish a 
new kingdom, whether of man or God, in Judea. We are, 
indeed, quite without any distinct literary reference to 
messianism during his reign — a fact that argues, not only 
repression, but also tolerable content on the part of the literary 
classes.* Yet, possibly, revolutionary messianism is to be seen 
in the robber bands which Herod was forced to reduce. 
Such scanty evidence as exists concerning these men makes 
it probable that they were akin to nationalists rather than to 

U Mace. 5:62. 2 c/. Pss. 1:5-9; 2:3,5,8; 4:5; 7:2; 8:9-14. 

3 2 Mace. 7 : 9, 11, 14, 19, 23, 29, 35-37 ; 12 : 43, 44. The second of the two letters pre- 
fixed to 2 Maccabees has a hope of a re-established nation and cult. 

4 The plot of the Pharisees described in Ant.^ xvii, 2:4, can hardly be messianic, 
since they are said to have promised the kingdom to Pheroras. Josephus's descrip- 
tion of this party is doubtless taken from Nicholas of Damascus. It hardly reads 
like the opinion of one who was himself a Pharisee. 



14 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

brigands.^ The conspiracy of the ten men,^ and the revolt 
of the people under the rabbis Judas and Mattathias,^ were 
also an exhibition of a nationalism which, though not to be 
very clearly described, certainly had its origin in the reli- 
gious sensibilities of the masses.* 

It was with the death of Herod that revolutionary messi- 
anism entered upon its uncontrollable career. From that 
time it is possible to trace its history in a series of more or 
less successful revolts, a succession of not always abortive 
popular movements, and the formation of sects. Indeed, 
the entire course of rebellion, which culminated in the 
triumph of the Zealots and the war of 66-70 A. D., is best 
understood as an ever-increasing revolutionary messianism — 
an attempt on the part of popular leaders to hasten that 
divine deliverance of their nation which the prophets had 
foretold, and which every Jew believed was sure to come. 
The words of Josephus^ describing the motive of the 
rebellion give us the only true point of view: "What 
most stirred them up to the war was an ambiguous oracle 
that was found also in their sacred writings, that about 
that time one from their country should become ruler of 
the world." To adopt this point of view is, however, not 
to say that all revolts were messianic. Several of them, 
as, for instance, those that followed the death of Herod, 
were clearly without any such significance.^ Nor is the 

1 For example, Hezekiah and his band (Josephus, ^ni., siv, 9:2), though this 
case is less probable than the other (Ant., xiv, 15:4, 5). The robbers he restrained 
in Trachonitis by settling colonists from Idumsea (JLnt, xvi, 9:1, 2) were of quite 
another type. 

2 Ant, XV, 8 : 3, 4. 3 Ant., xvii, 6 : 2-4. 

4 JosEPHUS, Ant., XV, 10:4, explains Herod's remission of a third of the taxes as 
an effort to regain the good-will of an outraged people. Josephus also in this con- 
nection notes Herod's use of spies and his forbidding meetings of all sorts except 
those of the Essenes. 

5 War, vi, 5 : 4. Cf. Tacitus, Hist., v, 13; Suetonius, Coesars, Vespasian, 4, 

6 For instance, that of the slave Simon and the shepherd Athrongseus ( War, ii, 
4:2, 3), and various other outbreaks, as those of War, ii, 5: Iff. 



Pkogram of Revolutionary Messianism 15 

revolt of 66-70 to be unreservedly called messianic. Many- 
men, then, like Justus^ were doubtless nothing more than 
rebels of a purely political sort. Those disturbances alone 
are to be considered messianic which are the work of a 
peculiar religious sect or, in particular, are evidently con- 
nected with the great Zealot movement of the middle of 
the century. 

The emergence of this revolutionary messianism as a dis- 
tinct political factor was at the taxing which succeeded the 
erection of Judea into a procuratorial province at the ban- 
ishment of Archelaus in 6 A. D. At that time Judas ^ of 
Gamala in Gaulanitis and a Pharisee named Zadduk organ- 
ized a fourth sect, especially influential among the younger 
Jews, co-ordinate with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, 
and encouraged the people to revolt against the new for- 
eign ruler. ^ Its character is clearly set forth in the descrip- 
tion of Josephus: "Its disciples agree in all other things 
V7ith the pharisaic notions, but they have an inviolable 
attachment to liberty, and say that God is their only ruler 
and lord." The share of this sect, so clearly that of the 
Zealots, with its "kingdom of God," in the downfall of the 
Jewish state is emphatically declared by Josephus.* To 
trace the rise of the Jewish revolt is hardly anything else 
than to trace the growth of the messianic propaganda. Nor 
was its spirit wholly confined to Judea. For, though any- 
thing like complete information is wanting, it is difficult not 
to see something akin to Zealot fanaticism in the gathering 
of armed Samaritans near Gerizim in order to discover the 

1 Josephus, Life, 65. 

2 A Galilean {War, ii, 8:1; Ant., xviii, 1:1,6). According to Guthe (art. 
"Israel," £nc2/. Bih.),h.G was probably the son of the "robber" Ezekias executed 
by Herod {Ant., xvii, 10 : 5 ; xiv, 9 : 3 f .) . 

^ Ant., xviii, 8:1,6. His sons, like those of Mattathias under Antiochus 
Epiphanes, apparently continued the movement begun by their father, for they were 
crucified by Alexander the procurator {Ant., xx, 5:2). 

4 ^w^., xviii, 1:1,6. 



16 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

sacred vessels buried in the mountains by Moses/ But it 
was in Judea and Galilee that the leaven worked most effect- 
ively. The prophet Theudas, who, in 45 or 46 A. D., induced 
a great multitude to follow him toward Jordan, which, like 
another Moses, he promised to divide, evidently appealed to 
the messianic hopes of the masses. That his career pro- 
duced no results was due to the promptness of the procurator 
Fadus.^ Under Felix, Judea and Galilee were alive with 
robbers and impostors, some of whom, like Eleazar, who for 
twenty years had led a band of outlaws,^ the procurator exe- 
cuted ; and some of whom, like the newly appearing Sicarii, 
he seems to have used to further his own plans.* Along 
with the Sicarii were men like Theudas urging the masses 
to follow them into the wilderness, there to see miracles. 
One of these impostors — if it is fair to use quite so harsh 
a term — was an Egyptian who promised his followers 
from the 'am haarets to stand on the Mount of Olives 
and cause the walls of Jerusalem to fall.^ More sig- 
nificant, however, are the obscure words of Josephus® in 
which he describes a body of "wicked men, cleaner in their 
hands, but more wicked in their intentions, who destroyed 
the peace of the city no less than did these murderers [the 
Sicarii]. For they were deceivers and deluders of the 
people, and under pretense of divine illumination were for 

1 Ant., xviii, 4:1. If this should have been by any chance connected also with 
the work of John and Jesus in the vicinity, it would have been one element in a piece 
of poetic justice. For it was his dispersion of this gathering that brought Pilate 
into exile. 

2 Ant., XX, 5:1; cf. Mark 13:22; Matt. 24:11,24. The disturbances under 
Cumanus {Ant., xx, 5 : 3, 4 ; War, ii, 12 : 1, 2) were due to religious fanaticism, though 
hardly to messianic currents. 

3 Ant., XX, 8 : 5 ; War, ii, 13 : 2, 3. 

4 These Sicarii were a group of fanatical Zealots, and hence messianists {cf. Ant., 
xviii, 1:1), who turned to assassination as a means of hurrying in the kingdom of 
God. Their share in the revolt of 66-70 A. D. was not considerable, but they held 
Masada, and perished there by their own hands (War, ii, 17:6; iv, 7:2, 9:5; 
vii, 8:lf., 10:1, 11:1). 

5 Ant., XX, 8 : 6 ; War, ii, 13 : 5 ; cf. Acts 21 : 38. 6 War, ii, 13 : 4. 



Program of Revolutionary Messianism 17 

innovations and changes." It is not difficult to see in these 
men a body of fanatics bound upon assisting God^ to bring 
in the deliverance for which their nation was passionately 
hoping.^ 

Under Felix there began to appear in this seething mes- 
sianism of the masses elements of social as well as political 
revolution. Several of the bodies of fanatics who were 
urging the masses to revolt were also plundering and burning 
the houses of the well-to-do people and killing their owners.^ 
How far the "innovating party at Jerusalem," which, 
according to Josephus,* under Albinus became a combination 
of "arch-robbers," and their "satellites" is to be identified 
with these emulators of the early Maccabeans it is impossible 
to say. The times were breeding anarchy quite as much as 
revolutionary idealism. Yet one cannot doubt that the mes- 
sianism of the Zealots included some wild schemes for reor- 
ganizing the Jewish state. Peasant utopias are always hard 
to reconstruct, so completely is one at the mercy of hostile 
chroniclers and historians; but if one comes to the history 
of the Zealots from that of the German and English Peas- 
ant Wars, and especially from the strikingly analogous 
movements among the French peasantry and proletarians 
just before and during the Revolution of 1789, it will be 
easy to see, back of the violence Josephus delights in char- 

1 They believed that " God would show them signs of liberty " in the desert. 

2 This hope of the Zealots has also been seen (e. gr., ScbtOeer, Vol. Ill 3, p. 219; 
Mathews, New Testament Times in Palestine^ p. 168) in Assumption of Moses, 10 : 8, 
which has sometimes been translated, "Thou shalt tread upon the neck and the 
wing of the eagle," the reference certainly suggesting Rome, and breathing thus the 
spirit of Zealotism. The translation, however, of the evidently mutilated verse 
should probably be, " Thou shalt mount up on the neck and the wings of the eagle," 
i. e., toward heaven, a thought immediately expressed in 10:9, 10. The entire frag- 
ment seems to express quietism and the non-resistance of the Chasidim as well as 
the unwarlike transcendentalism of early pharisaism. See especially 9 : 4-7, with 
which compare 1 Mace. 1:53; 2:31-38; 2 Mace. 6:11; 10:6; ^nt, xii, 6:2. Thatthe 
author was a Pharisee is now held by Chaeles, Assumption of Moses ; Clemen, in 
Kautzsch, Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen, Vol. II, pp. 314 f. The fragment was 
probably written during the first quarter of the first Christian century. 

3 War, ii, 13 : 6. * War, ii, 14 : 1 . 



18 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

ging upon them, a determined efPort on the part of men like 
John of Gischala and Eleazar to establish a new Jewish 
state in which there should be not only liberty/ but also 
equality. This purpose it is that explains, at least partially, 
that cleavage between the wealthy, learned, and official 
classes and the masses, which characterized the entire revo- 
lutionary period. Such cleavage was no new phenomenon, for 
the ''am haarets had always been despised by the Pharisees 
and high-priests,^ but with the first resistance to the procura- 
tor Gessius Florus it became a source of civil war. From 
the outset the Pharisees and high-priests as a class opposed 
the revolt. Singularly enough, however, the radical who 
first proposed that the sacrifices for the emperor cease was 
Eleazar, the son of the high-priest Ananias, at that time 
governor of the temple; and, despite the opposition of the 
class to which he belonged, he was able to carry his plan 
into action.^ The conservative element in Jerusalem was, 
indeed, with the greatest difficulty induced to abandon the 
non-political* attitude of apocalyptic messianism. It under- 
took the organization of the revolt only as the less of two 
evils, and doubtless with the purpose of making peace as 
soon as possible with Rome^ — a fact that gives special sig- 
nificance to the labors of that enemy of dilettante revolution- 
ists, John of Gischala.® But even such adjustment of the 
"classes" and "masses" was short-lived. The moment the 
Zealots and their sympathizers among the masses gained 

IC/. TFar, iv, 4:1, 5; 5:5. 

2 That this contempt should have grown under the later rabbis is very likely due 
in part to the events of the civil war, 66-70 A. D. For illustration of what this feeling 
was, see quotations in Schukeb, Jewish People, etc., Div. II, ii, 8(6), especially Demai, 
ii, 3. On some more shocking expressions (e. gr., "a member of the ^am haarets may 
be slit up," Pesachim, 495) see some very sensible words in Lazarus, Ethics of Juda- 
ism, Vol. I, pp. 258 f. 

3 War, ii, 17 : 2. * Ant., xvii, 11 : 1, 2. 

5 JosEPHUS, Life, 7 ; War, ii, 17 : 4 ; iv, 5 : 2. See also War, ii, 20 : 1-3. 

6 War, ii, 21 : 1, 2 ; Life, 13. 



Program of Revolutionary Messiaisnm 19 

any advantage, their policy of economic as well as political 
revolution emerged. Thus in the first excitement of the 
attempt to establish the ideal state they set fire to the 
public archives/ burned all records of indebtedness, and 
massacred the high -priest Ananias.^ This anti-aristocratic 
spirit developed rapidly after the collapse of the attempt of 
the bourgeois party to organize a successful revolt in Galilee, 
and, thanks to the enthusiasm of the younger Jews, through- 
out the fearful days of civil war it grew even more extreme. 
A band of fanatical Idumean patriots was introduced as the 
means of establishing a veritable reign of terror, in the 
midst of which many wealthy men were killed, including the 
noble high-priest Ananus.^ The effort to force the hand of 
Jehovah and to compel him to hasten the deliverance of an 
abortive messianic state had become, like so many a later 
revolution, a carnival of blood. Yet through all this struggle 
one can see the persistent, though ever-diminishing, idealism 
of the Zealots. They would have a peasant high-priest, a 
new state, a new people, and no king but God.* The ancient 
prophets in whose words they trusted could not be seen to 
foretell anything but triumph for such an ambition,^ and 
during the miseries of the last days of the capital the later 
prophets were urging the people to await deliverance from 
God.*^ 

Their mad hope of deliverance included, as has already 
been said, a conqueror, whose appearance was assured by the 
"ambiguous oracle" (xprja/io? a^KJ^i/SoXo^) of which Josephus 
speaks, and which can be no other than that of Daniel.^ 

1 Yet, c/. TFar, vi, 6:3. 

2 War, ii, 17 : 6, 9. That they were seeking after some ideal state is clear from 
Eleazar's execution of the would-be tyrant Menahem. 

3 PTar, iv, 5 : 1-3. ^ c/. TTar, iv, 3:6-8; 5:4, 5; 6:1. 5 TTar, iv, 6 : 3. 
6 War, vi, 5 : 2. Many portents are described by Josephus, War, vi, 5 : 3. 

^ That Josephus himself regarded this prophecy as foretelling the destruction of 
Rome seems implied by his refusal to interpret the " stone " of Dan. 2 : 45 in Ani., x, 
10:4. 



20 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Here in this hope the motif of the entire Zealot movement 
may be seen: its members believed that, if once they could 
organize an independent republic, during its struggle with 
Kome the Messiah himself would come to its aid.^ It is 
even possible to see in the desperate faith of the Jerusalem 
prophets^ a faith born of Dan. 9 : 25, that the very destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem would in God's own time — "seven weeks 
and three score and two weeks" — be followed by the 
appearance of the Messiah.^ 

In very truth, the Jews who had rejected Jesus as Messiah 
paid terribly for their rejection of "the things that pertained 
to peace" and their choice of another hope. The Jewish 
state fell, the victim of an ever-developing fanaticism, born 
of a faith in a coming kingdom and king. In the attempt 
made by the Zealots to hasten God's time there is to be seen 
a hope for an actual commonwealth, which, however we may 
admit our lack of information, was clearly to embrace new 
social institutions. How vain was their dream is apparent, 
but it was no less dreamed. Nor did messianism of this 
type perish with the temple. A half -century later it again 
blazed out, but with its champions no longer separated from 
the party of the Pharisees. In its new form revolutionary 
messianism was guided and inspired by no less a person than 
the great rabbi Akiba. 

1 The r6le played by the prophecies of Daniel throughout this period of the 
Jewish state is great. Chief reliance was undoubtedly laid upon the vision of the 
'•stone cut without hands from the mountain" (Dan. 2:45) and the vision of the 
"Son of man" (7:13), the Messiah (9:25), and the apocalypse of chaps. 11 and 12. 
The "ambiguity " in these oracles can have been only whether the new prince was 
to be a native Jew of Palestine or a foreigner. Josephus interprets it in the latter 
sense (so Geelach, Die Weissagungen d. A. T. in den Schriften d. Fl. Jo,, p. 73), 
apparently thereby giving up all further expectation of a coming Messiah — a con- 
clusion, however, hard to accept in the light of Ant., x, 10:4, and his treatment of 
the prophecy of Balaam {Ant., iv, 6:5). It is perhaps worth noticing that this 
familiarity of the people at large with the prophecies of Daniel is an important 
element in judging the meaning Jesus conveyed by speaking of himself as 6 uibs 

ToO avOpoJirov, 

2 War, vi, 5:2. 3 Geelach, p. 84. 



CHAPTER III 
THE APOCALYPTIC MESSIANISM OF THE PHARISEES 

SECTION I. THE KISE OF APOCALYPTIC 

As THE legalism of pharisaism was the outgrowth of the 
Codes, so the idealism of its apocalyptic was the outgrowth 
of prophetism. The forerunner of apocalyptic must be 
sought in what had been a regulative thought of the prophets, 
the Day of Jehovah — that time when the God of Israel 
would exercise his right and inflict terrible punishment upon 
all those who had not kept his law. What this Day had 
been to Israel before Amos may be conjectured from the 
national belief in Jehovah as a God certain to defeat all 
rivals; it was to be a day of joy and peace for a conquering 
Hebrew nation.^ With Amos and the great prophets who 
succeeded him the Day became one in which Israel was to be 
punished by Jehovah for its sins. Instead of glory there 
was to be frightful suffering. The luxury of the nation, 
springing as it did from economic oppression, had grown 
hateful to the prophet and his God,^ and the degenerate 
people was to be destroyed as a vindication of Jehovah's 
righteousness. 

Ever after Amos the Day had the same religious color- 
ing. Yet it was no longer to be a punishment merely of a 
wicked Isr.ael, but of a wicked world. Zephaniah saw an 
all but universal judgment day, for Jews as well as heathen.^ 

1 See the discussion by J. M. P. Smith, " The Day of Yahweh," American Journal 
of Theology, July, 1901, pp. 505 f. 

2 Amos 2:6-8; 3:9-15; 5:10-13; 6:4-8. Haeper, "The Prophecies of Amos 
Strophically Arranged," Biblical World, 1898. Cf. McCuedy, History, Prophecy and 
the Monuments, Vol. I, pp. 308 f . 

3 Zeph. 3 : 8, 14-20, however, argue the exception of Judah. If this is late, 1 : 2-18 ; 
2:4-15, present the Day with sufficient distinctness. 

21 



22 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Ezekiel conceived of it as a day of battle in which Jehovah 
would conquer all of Israel's foes.^ Later prophets, like 
Malachi, foretold the fearful punishment to be then meted out 
upon the wicked, Jew and gentile alike. Whatever hope of 
deliverance the Day might contain was for the pious remnant. 

After the exile this thought of deliverance from their 
enemies naturally grew stronger among a people con- 
sciously striving to keep Jehovah's law, and thus the Day 
became assimilated with the new messianic hope. All its 
terrors were believed to be reserved for the enemies of the 
new Judah.^ Religious faith lost itself in visions, and 
revenge found earthly warfare insufficient for its purposes. 
A new rhetoric was demanded, in which the extremes of 
pessimism as to the present and the wildest optimism for the 
future might be properly exhibited. And then arose the 
apocalypse. ^ 

One cannot be far from the truth if he considers the 
apocalypse the exposition of the Day of Jehovah in a literary 
form resulting from the Hellenistic influences under which 
the Jews lived even from before the days of Alexander. This 
influence was both philosophical and aesthetic. Of philoso- 
phy was born Wisdom, and of aesthetics was born apocalyptic. 
Greek influence always prompted a people to some form of 
aesthetic expression, but the new art, in so far as it was not 
simply imitative, was determined by a people's past. As the 
Greek turned to marble and bronze and canvas as the media 
in which to perpetuate his anthropomorphic symbols of truth 
and hopes, the Jew, fearing to make to himself any graven 
image, used language for his statues and his paintings. 
Utterly lacking in a knowledge of technique,* hardly ven- 

1 Ezek. 30 : 2 f . ; 34 : 12 ; 39 : 8 f . 2 Cf. Joel 2 : 18-27. 

a Cf. Chaeles, art. "Apocalyptic," Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible; Toreey, 
"Apocalypse," Jewish Encyclopoedia, Vol. I, and literature cited there. 

4 Cf., for instance, the bas-relief decoration in the castle of Hyrcanus, east of 
Jordan, in 'Arak el-Emir (Josephus, Ant., xii, 4:11). 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 23 

turing to look at a Greek god or goddess, deficient in the 
very elements of art, he painted his word-pictures as he had 
seen the uncouth monsters of Egypt and Assyria.^ His sym- 
bols became strange creatures with eagles' wings and lions' 
bodies, legs of brass, and feet of clay. Unity was as lacking 
in the composition of his pictures as in their units. Bulls 
and buffaloes and sheep and goats and birds and shepherds 
jostled each other in his visions, and the fixed order of nature 
was unhesitatingly reversed. Yet in all these inartistic, con- 
fused symbols stands the one great thought of the prophetic 
Day of Jehovah. God will judge mankind, will gloriously 
deliver a righteous Israel from oppression, will indescribably 
punish the wicked and the heathen, and will establish a 
regenerate Judah at the head of the entire world. 

It is not to our purpose to discuss how far these compos- 
ite pictures of pessimism and extravagant hope were also 
influenced by the creation myths of Babylon.^ That there 
was such influence is clear, not alone from the characters 
and scheme of each apocalypse,^ but from the fact of the 
appearance of this bastard prophetism among those who had 
been subjected to the influences of the exile. Yet the apoca- 
lypse really belongs to the Greek period of Jewish history. 
While visions were not unknown to genuine prophetism, it 
is not until the post-exilic second Zechariah* that a true 
apocalypse is met in Hebrew literature. As might have 
been expected, this first apocalypse deals, however interrupt- 
edly, with the Day of Jehovah, although "that day" is pre- 
ferred to this precise term. There, as always, its chief con- 
tent is that of punishment, but along with threats there are 

1 Cf. for a popular statement F. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel. 

2 The question as to whether the apocalyptic pictures are mythological or 
products of their times " scheint mir vielfach ein Streit um des Kaisers Bart zu sein," 
says Preuschex, Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft^ 1901, p. 169, note 

3 See GuxKEL, Schdpfung und Chaos, pp. 286-93, for summary. 
*Zech., chaps. 9-14. 



24 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the promises of blessings; for Israel was to be repentant, 
and out of its sorrow was to come deliverance. But wild as 
are the figures with which these complementary thoughts 
are set forth, it would be untrue to the general spirit inspir- 
ing the early apocalyptic writing to think of its visions as in 
the strictest sense eschatological.^ A complete eschatology 
was possible only when to other hopes there was joined some 
recognition of the resurrection of the dead. In a general 
sense, it is true, one might call these forecastings of the 
future eschatological, but only in the sense that the apoca- 
lypses looked across the culmination of one "age" into the 
events of another. Farther than this it is impossible to go. 
The synthesis of the nation's and the individual's future 
attempted by Ezekiel had been wholly within this mortal 
life. It would be impossible to deny that the Jews through- 
out his period, when the material of later messianism was 
developing, had some belief in immortality, but there is no 
evidence that this hope had become in any way connected 
with messianism. Yet after the Return such a union could 
not long be postponed. The influence of Ezekiel's national- 
ism and of the later prophetic individualism was too strong. 
With Isa. 26:1-19, that is, probably in the fourth century 
B. C,^ immortality appears with distinctness, but only as 
limited to pious Hebrews. The son of Sirach seldom ven- 
tures to forecast the future, and then generally^ in the spirit 
of prophecy, but by the time of Daniel* the belief in the 
resurrection has come to include others than Hebrews, and 

1 The limitation of the term " eschatological in the strict sense " to forecasts of 
the future involving a resurrection of the dead may appear somewhat arbitrary, but 
seems necessary for clear thinking. Some word like " neo-eschatological " might 
possibly be used to, distinguish the eschatology of Pharisaism from that of prophetism. 

2 Cheyne, Introduction to Isaiah, pp. 145 f., and art. " Isaiah " in EncyclopcBdia 
Biblica; Deivbe, Introduction (6th ed.), favors a date early in the fifth century B. C. 

3 Ecclus. 35 : 18, 19 ; 47 : 11 ; 48 : 10, 11 ; 50 :23, 24. 

* Dan. 12 : 1 f . On this matter in general see Chaeles, Eschatology, and his arti- 
cles in the Encyclopaedia Biblica and Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible. Unfor- 
tunately, he has not fully treated this particular phase of the subject. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 25 

is joined with the messianic hope. Although this union con- 
cerns only the consummation of deliverance, like so much 
else in Daniel, it was the beginning of that which was to 
prove so potent a supplement of the social messianism of 
the prophets, the new eschatology of later apocalyptic. 

SECTION II. THE APOCALYPSE AS A MEANS OF TRANSITION 
FROM POLITICAL TO TRANSCENDENTAL MESSIANISM 

While the messianism of the masses, following, though 
but blindly, in the path of the older prophetic nationalism, 
was seeking to establish a regenerate Israel as the precursor 
of the kingdom of God, that of the literary classes, and of 
the Pharisees in particular, advanced in the line of apoca- 
lyptic. This fact was a natural outcome of the difference 
between the comfortable and the distressed elements in the 
Jewish state. The masses wished for a new kingdom in 
which an end should be made of the actually felt misery 
born of poverty and social inequality quite as certainly as of 
the national dishonor of subjection to a heathen power. The 
Pharisees, enjoying personal comfort and respect, were 
naturally concerned rather with the more impersonal, if not 
paradoxical, matter of the establishment of a new Jewish 
state without revolution or social regeneration. Their hope 
was in consequence more joined with patience. God, and 
not man, would bring in the new age. Throughout the 
three centuries in which the apocalyptic suggestions of 
Daniel were developed into new doctrines, pharisaic messi- 
anism became increasingly transcendental. A literary bour- 
geoisie could well afford to discountenance revolution and 
await the fulfilment of academic dreams. 

Yet the Pharisees, in their early days, were by no means 
indifferent to politics. The great scribal movement from 
which they sprang had crystallized first in the party of the 
Chasidim, and the society of Pharisees had differentiated 



26 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

itself from the older party largely because it saw in national 
affairs the need of applying its principle of separation. The 
break between John Hyrcanus and those who had been his 
family's truest supporters doubtless came from the refusal of 
the Pharisees to have further share in the traditional Asmo- 
nean policy of immersing Judea in international politics. 
The bitter war which the Pharisees had waged with Alex- 
ander Jannseus was due to their opposition to the growing 
monarchy. Under Alexandra and Simon ben Shetach the 
Pharisees had supported the government, and had brought 
great prosperity to the nation. Later they had taken sides 
in the unhappy struggles between Aristobulus and Hyrcanus 
II., and had thus been involved in the new political life 
resulting from the conquest of Judea by Pompey. 

But with the rise of the house of Antipater the political 
interests of pharisaism had weakened. The awakening from 
the dream of an ideal Israel administered by a Sanhedrin 
devoted to the oral law, to the rough-and-ready government 
of a foreigner supported by a heathen power, was too rude 
even for their political idealism, and they attempted to 
reduce Jewish political life to the minimum. Confronted 
with the alternative of revolt or of submission to such rulers, 
at first they chose neither. Twice at least did they endeavor 
to induce the Romans to govern Judea through a provincial 
official and local Jewish councils rather than through a rex 
socius,^ and then, when these requests had been repeatedly 
refused, the leaders of the society advised submission to 
rulers, whoever they might be.^ Yet even then many of 
them refused to take a formal oath of allegiance to Herod.^ 

1 Thus in the appeal to Pompey (though the Pharisees are not mentioned) (Ant 
xiv, 3 : 2) and at the probating of Herod's will {Ant., xvii, 11 : 1, 2). Cf. also the desires 
of the high-priest for peace ( Wa7\ iv, 5 : 2) and the attitude of Josephus and his party 
at the outbreak of the revolt of 66 A. D. (Josephus, Life, §§ 5, 7, 13). 

2 Thus PoUio and Sameas counseled submission to Herod {Ant., xiv, 9:4; xv, 1:1). 

3 With the Essenes, they were excused by that monarch {Ant., xv, 10:4; xvii, 
2:4), though fined. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 27 

With political hopes thus destroyed, the Pharisees turned 
with an ever-increasing faith to Jehovah and his law. In his 
good time deliverance would come to his people. In the 
meantime his people might well await the divine plan. 
Throughout the period in which revolutionary messianism 
was developing, the Pharisees, as well as the Sadducees, con- 
stituted a party of law and order. Revolution was farthest 
possible from their plans, and it is their spirit that breathes 
in the unceasing denunciation of the Zealots in Josephus. 
That body, though agreeing with the Pharisees in matters 
of general belief,^ differed from them radically in all matters 
pertaining to the kingdom of Grod. The one attempted to 
hasten, the other awaited, God's deliverance.^ 

Yet with the Pharisees, as with the Zealots, messianism 
was grounded in a sense of misery so abject as to be hope- 
less except for Jehovah; only in their minds this misery 
was given a purely religious explanation. The world, 
though originally created for Israel,^ seemed too miserable 
and wicked for Jehovah's immediate presence, and pharisa- 
ism became half deistic and thoroughly dualistic. God had 
abandoned the evil world. It was his Memra, his Word, 
that was present,* and his law rather than the Shekinah 
was the sign of his regard for men. The misery which the 
righteous suffered, though a punishment for the sins of Israel,^ 
was in no way interpreted as evidence of an approaching 

1 Ant., xviii, 1 : 1, 6 ; War, ii, 8 : 1. 

2 So far from correct is the undiscriminating statement of Eaton, art. "Phari- 
sees," Hastings's Diet, of the Bible, that the Zealots " simply carried out the Phari- 
saic principles to their logical conclusion." The logical conclusions of pharisaic 
messianism were precisely those exemplij3.ed in pharisaism itself — a peaceful await- 
ing of the coming of the eschatological kingdom of God and the Messiah. For the 
relations of the two parties see, for instance. Ant., xviii, 1:1; War, iv, 3:9 ff. 
GuTHE (art. "Israel," Ency. Bib.) has distinguished between the two parties. 

^Assumption of Moses, 1:12; cf. 1:14-17; 4 Ezra 6 : 55, 59 ; 7:11; c/. Charles's 
note, Assum. Mos., 1 :12 ; Apoc. Bar., 14: 18. 

^ Enoch, 40: 7. See, for a somewhat extreme presentation of this entire matter, 
Baldenspeeger, Das Selbstbewiisstsein Jesu, chaps. 1, 2. 

^ Enoch, 89 f. See also the Psalms of Solomon, passim. 



28 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

deliverance. On the contrary, misfortunes were evidence of 
the existence of a "Prince of the World," of a Satan,^ or of an 
Antichrist, the great opponent of God and the future Christ, 
who was allowed for a time to torment Jehovah's people. 
Even when not conceived of as transcendent, this opposing 
personality was ever present in the mind of the pious 
Pharisee. Antiochus Epiphanes; the dread figure of 
Daniel and the Assumption of Moses/ the kings of the 
Medes and Parthians;^ the world of demons with its prince 
Beelzebub — all seemed to explain Israel's misfortune and to 
stimulate new faith.* The very indefiniteness of this pres- 
ent evil ruler must have made the Pharisee discountenance 
revolution and look the more eagerly for the interference of 
Jehovah. The arm of flesh would have been weak indeed 
against the Prince of the power of the air. Thus there 
grew up the dualistic belief in two opposing kingdoms, that 
of God and that of Satan; the one peopled with good 
angels, the other with demons^ and evil angels. Humanity 
itself was the prize for which they strove. Small, indeed, as 
was the joy to be expected by the righteous in the present 
age, Satan with all his demoniacal host was to be punished,^ 
and God's kingdom with all its blessings would certainly 
come. If for the present Satan seemed supreme, his tri- 
umph was but temporary. Fearful as was to be the struggle 

1 Assumption of Moses, 10 : 1 ; Enoch, 53 : 3. 

2 Chap. 8. 3 Enoch, 53: 1 f. ; 56 : 1 f. ; 90: 1 f. 

4 On Antichrist see Bousset, Der Antichrist; Preuschen, " Paulus als Anti- 
christ," Zeitschrift filr die neutestamentUche Wissenschaft, 1901, pp. 169-201. 

5 According to Enoch, 15 : 8-12, the demons are the children of angels and women. 
Cf. Gen. 6 : 2. Yet in 19 : 1 apparently the demons were in existence prior to this event. 

6 See, for instance, ^»ioc7i, 10:6, 12f.; 14:5; 16:1-4; 21:10; 41:9; 54:5f.; 55:4; 
chaps. 64, 68, 88 ; 90 : 15, 21-24 ; Book of Jubilees, 5 : 10 ; 10 : 8. Cf. also 23 : 29. Accord- 
ing to Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, p. 242, this dualism seems to disap- 
pear from Jewish literature. It certainly is present in rabbinical, even if it be not 
prominent or present in 4 Esdras; and Bacher, Agada der Tannaiten, gives but 
three references. Orthodox Judaism today, at least in Palestine, is a firm believer 
in demons as the authors of misfortune. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Phakisees 29 

between him and God (or Christ)/ there was no question as 
to its outcome. Righteousness, not sin, was the eternal 
element in the universe.^ 

The passage from the religio-political messianism of the 
earlier Asmonean days to that of the passive resistance of 
the first Christian century was due to the increasing influ- 
ence of this magnificent moral optimism, and is easily to be 
traced in the literature of pharisaism. In its early writings, 
the kingdom is still superior to the Messiah, and patriotism 
is still of this world. Only gradually did the images of the 
apocalypse cease to be political symbols and become literal 
figures. None the less, from the first the certainty of the 
triumph of God's kingdom and the establishment of the 
long-expected world-judgment forbade appeal to arms. 
Even before the development of apocalyptic in the Enoch 
literature, Elijah was to come as the forerunner^ of the 
glorious, though still hardly individualized, son of David* 
and the eternal kingdom of Israel.^ Judith^ and Tobit^ 
expect an approaching judgment of God upon the enemies 
of Israel which clearly echoes the prophecies of the Day of 
Jehovah. The triumph and glory of Israel are vividly 
promised by Baruch,^ and immortality is predicated of those 
alone who were to share in the messianic kingdom.^ The 

1 Test. XII Pat., Levi, 18; Dan., chap. 5; Naph., 8; Assum. Moses, 10: 1. 

2 The ease with which men turned to apocalypse as a means of stimulating their 
despairing countrymen is seen in the sudden transition, both in style and contents, 
that marks Assumption of Moses, chap. 10. 

3 Mai. 3:23, 24; Ecclus. 48:10 The r5le played by Elijah in later messianism 
will be considered below. 

4 Ecclus. 47 : 11 ; 1 Mace. 2 : 57. 5 Ecclus. 37 : 25 ; 44 : 13 ; 2 Mace. 14 : 15. 
6 Judith 16 : 17. 7 Tobit 13 : 11-13, 16-18. 

8 Baruch, 2 : 34, 35 ; 5 : 1-9. Possibly, however, these passages are as late as the 
fall of Jerusalem. 

9 2 Mace. 6 : 26 ; 7 : 9, 11, 14, 20, 23, 29, 33, 36 ; 12 : 42-45. As to the fate of the wicked 
see especially 7:14. There is, of course, a fair critical question as to whether these 
passages belong to the early Asmonean time. See Niese, Die Kntik der beiden 
Makkabderbucher. Cf. Tobit 14 : 6, 7. 



30 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Sibylline Oracles^ show even in their most elevated passages 
that political hopes had not been entirely abandoned by 
those who readily adopted the apocalypse as a literary form. 
The misery suffered under the Seleucidse was quite too 
recent to be forgotten even by a Jew of the dispersion. The 
judgment was still national rather than individual, the 
messianic age the day of a Jewish empire, and the king who 
was to be sent by Grod from the east — or sun — to "make all 
the world cease from cruel war, killing some and making 
faithful treaties with others," was doubtless an idealized John 
Hyrcanus. Yet even here the writer could not stop with 
mere political supremacy. The earthly representatives of 
Satan's kingdom, the enemies of Israel, were to perish, the 
righteous Jews were to be eternally blessed, and at last " he 
who formally gave the Law to the pious would take the 
kingdom forever over all men." ^ 

The line of development of messianism for a considerable 
period does not seem to have followed the resurrection of 
the dead already noted in Dan. 12 : 2, fruitful as it was 
later to become, but kept true to its uneschatological and 
mundane limitations. The passage from glowing visions of 
a triumphant, re-established Israel to the Pharisees' belief 
in the literal character of the apocalyptic drapery is long, if 
easy, and one must look beyond Daniel to find it accom- 
plished. For the early apocalyptic movement extraordinary 
word-paintings were intended to portray actual political and 
social regeneration. The Day of Jehovah itself involved 
the re-establishment of Jerusalem and certain institutions 
modeled on the strong lines of the older prophetism.^ 

1 Metrical translation by Teeet, The Sibylline Oracles; German translation of 
essential portions by Blass, in Kautzsch, Apok. und Pseud., Vol. II, pp. 177-217 ; 
Greek text, RzACH, Oracula Sihyllina ; Geffcken, Oracula Sibyllina. 

2 Sib. Or., iii, 655-97, and especiaUy 710-42, 755-60, 766-72, 930. 

3 Cf. Zech. 12 : 5-9, and also the extraordinary readjustment of the topography 
of Judea in Zech., chap. 14. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 31 

Apocalyptic itself, in its first portrayal of the emergence of 
an exulting nation from bitterest anguish, had a social con- 
tent. Its figures were truly figurative. The new Judah 
was not to be in the sky or composed of imaginary beings, 
but was to be geographical and political.^ 

The perception of a concrete and, so to speak, historical 
phenomenon in the messianic community is to be seen clearly 
in the great parent of later apocalyptic, Daniel. How thor- 
oughly this writing is prophecy post eventum has been 
apparent to most recent interpreters. Nor can exegesis find 
within it forecasts of a dim future. The various beasts rep- 
resent, not world-epochs, but kingdoms which had been all 
too real in the affairs of the Jews. Three times over is the 
history of Israel's international relations traced. The lion, 
the bear, the leopard, and the fourth beast of chap. 7 are 
almost obviously the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, 
and the Macedonian empires. The same is true of the 
visions of chaps. 2 and 8.^ This historical horizon, however, 
is bounded by the career of Antiochus Epiphanes, so strik- 
ingly pictured in the visions,^ and with the death of that 
king upon his expedition to the East the writer passes at 
once to the glories of the messianic days. Yet here his 
vision is still national. The "son of man," or human being,* 
pictured the coming and triumph of a very real kingdom 
of the saints. From the point of view of this prophecy, in 

iZech. 9:9, 10. 

2 The historical diflBculties connected with finding a Median empire between the 
Chaldean and the Persian are considerable, but affect the historical worth of the 
book rather than this interpretation. Dan. 6:1; 8:3, 20; 9:1 can hardly mean any- 
thing else than that the Median empire of Darius really was the second world-power. 
See commentaries by Deiatee, Bevan, Maeti, Behemann ; the general Introductions 
and the articles in Encyclopcedia Bihlica and Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible. 
Critical scholarship is practically a unit in assigning the book to the Maccabean 
period. 

3 Dan. 7 : 8, 20-26 ; 8 : 23-25 ; 11 : 21-45. 

4 Dan. 7 : 13. It is impossible to see in "©3^^ "I3D ^^J other meaning. The con- 
trast is clearly between beastlike and human symbols. No personal Messiah is 
suggested. As the beasts stood for heathen empires, so a man symbolized the new 
Israel. 



32 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

fact, the early Maccabean uprising must have appeared a 
part of the divine deliverance promised the oppressed Pious. 
Yet in the same proportion as it is thus judged messianic 
must it also be declared social and political. As a revolt it 
was no mere incident in Jewish, or, indirectly, in universal, 
history. Until the unexpected uprising of the Pious, the 
Jewish state was being slowly amalgamated with a classical 
antiquity. Not only had it lost its independence, it was 
losing its religion as well. A theocracy whose high-priest 
was indifferent to the cult that conditioned the very existence 
of his nation could hardly be expected to resist much longer 
the pervasive Hellenism of its suzerain. The double rebel- 
lion of Mattathias and the Pious was no more the reaction 
against persecution than it was the child of devotion to the 
law and of a desperate idealism. The bands of fanatics 
which ranged through the little state, "smiting sinners in 
their anger and lawless men in their wrath," pulling down 
heathen altars, circumcising neglected children, guarantee- 
ing, as far as with them lay, safety in the observance of the 
Thorah and the developing oral law,^ certainly regarded them- 
selves as appointed by Jehovah, both for deliverance and for 
the reconstruction of the state.^ Apart from their devotion 
to law, it is to be admitted that evidence of any definite 
social program is wanting; but back of all the development 
of the state under the Asmonean house, and inextricably 
united with the new nomism, there is to be presupposed 
such hopes as run through the earlier portions of Enoch. 
God was ever more strongly to aid the new theocracy and 
punish its and his own enemies. With the Maccabean epoch 
messianism, like scribism, enters upon a new stage. 

Nor did success, as so often, prove fatal to the belief of 
the scribes and their followers that Grod's kingdom was 
soon to appear. Even in Hellenistic Judaism the Day of 

1 1 Mace. 2 : 42-70. 2 1 Mace. 5 : 55-62. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 33 

Jehovah still fills the future. It is impossible to see in 
the divinely promised king of the Sibylline Oracles^ any 
other than one of the Asmonean house, Simon, or possibly 
John Hyrcanus. Under him all war was to cease, and Grod 
would send blessings upon the righteous and punishments 
upon the lawless. Bloody wars and convulsions in nature 
were to establish a peaceful state, bountifully supported by 
a miraculously fruitful earth. The nations would come 
under the law of Jehovah, and all the world become an 
empire with Jerusalem as its capital. In the other literature 
of the time may be traced similar expectations. "Wisdom" 
itself, with all its disillusions, could not quite disbelieve in a 
judgment of the heathen, a deliverance of God's people, and 
an everlasting Jewish empire under a Davidic dynasty.^ 
The writer of the book of Tobit ventures the hope that when 
the new Jewish empire is established all the heathen will be 
converted to Grod.^ Such messianism, though expressed in 
terms of apocalyptic, evidently had not become transcen- 
dental, but possessed still the social content of prophetism 
itself. Its mission was to picture the rise of a triumphant 
nationality — a new and divinely established world-power. 

How truly national the hopes of the Pharisees were 
appears as we trace the stream of their literature from 
Daniel onward. If the new Israel was to be the result of 
miracle rather than of revolution, it was none the less to be 
a state. Indeed, it is impossible to avoid feeling that at the 
beginning, behind symbols and visions of vengeance, there 
is lingering the conviction that possibly war itself may be 
the duty of a holy people. But this conviction, if it were 

1 Sibylline Oracles, III, 652-794. 

2 Ecclus. 32 : 18, 19 ; 33 : 1 f . ; 37 : 25 ; 47 : 11 ; 50 : 24 ; with the first of these references 
c/. Judith 16: 17. 

3 Tobit 13 : 11 ; 14 : 6, 7. How far this hope ran through the Dispersion can hardly 
be said because of lack of data. But cf. Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und 
der Juden zu den Fremden, pp. 257-302, 337 ; and Feiedlandee, Das Judenthum in 
der vorchristUchen griechischen Welt. 



34 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

really present, is sedulously concealed. Saints were to be 
delivered; they were not to achieve deliverance. 

section III. THE MESSIANISM OF THE EARLIER APOCALYPTIC 

The stream of literature to which we have just referred 
is always pseudepigraphic, and consists of the visions of the 
future granted to great men of the past, like Enoch, the 
patriarchs, !Moses, Baruch, and Ezra. These saints are rep- 
resented as bequeathing in the way of admonition and encour- 
agement to their descendants. Of the entire literature the 
canonical Daniel is by far the most typical. Its method, its 
range of vision, in many ways its symbols, repeatedly reap- 
pear in its successors. All portray history symbolically 
in terms of explained mysteries and prophecy, only to pass 
into apocalyptic poetry when describing the future; all are 
unconcerned about historical accuracy ; all represent nations 
and persons under the forms of animals. What is even 
more important, all the pseudepigraphic literature like Daniel 
was written for the purpose of arousing faith and courage by 
insisting upon the certain destruction of those who had 
brought misery upon Israel, and the equally certain deliv- 
erance and supremacy of the Hebrew people. It is this 
confidence that lies at the foundation of whatever genuinely 
ethical teaching there may be contained in its interminable 
and commonplace visions. 

Most important of this uncanonical pseudepigraphic 
literature is that which bears the name of Enoch. It is 
probably not quite accurate to say that Daniel is the pro- 
genitor of the Enoch literature as a whole. The fact that 
so much of this literature sprang up practically contempo- 
raneously with Daniel would rather argue that both litera- 
tures are the outcome of the same literary and spiritual 
movement. Within the cycle of visions brought together 
by some unknown editor is to be clearly seen the passage 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 35 

from political messianism expressed in apocalyptic form to 
a transcendental messianism in which apocalyptic elements 
have been literalized and political elements all but removed.^ 
In the original groundwork of the present book (Ethiopic) of 
Enoch, chaps. 1-36, 72-104, the messianic element, though 
expressed in apocalyptic terms, is national. In it, as in 
Daniel, is to be seen the misery and the faith of an 
oppressed people. Jehovah had permitted their enemies to 
crush the pious, but the future was certain to see the pun- 
ishment of the oppressors. If we neglect the various dis- 
cussions of nature, and the origin of evil through the wicked 
angels, chaps. 1-36 consist chiefly of the portrayal of the 
punishment to be accorded the wicked, both demoniac and 
human, and the awards awaiting the righteous. Central in 
the entire portrayal is the day of judgment,^ when the fate of 
mankind is fixed. The punishment is all but invariably 
unquenchable fire, though in a somewhat elaborate chap- 
ter^ sheol is divided into four sections, in two of which 
are the souls of the righteous, and in the other two, suffering 
different punishment, are the two classes of dead sinners, 
those who had and those who had not suffered in their 
earthly life. The rewards of the righteous are sensuous; 
they are to live five hundred years,* will beget a thousand 
children, and die in peace.^ The entire earth will be miracu- 

1 Recent criticism, as represented by Schurer, Beer (in Kautzsch, Apoh. u. 
PsewcZ.) , Charles, Flemming and Radermacher, Bousset {Die Religion des Judentums), 
is agreed on the main divisions of Enoch and the general periods of their compo- 
sition. The original work, chaps. 1-36, 72-104, barring numerous interpolations, 
was written before 100 B. C. ; chaps. 37-70, before 64 or 37 B. C. Each of these 
divisions is in no small degree composite, but the precise lines of divisions must in 
many cases remain a matter of discussion. Compare, e. g., the analysis of Charles 
{The Book of Enoch) and Beers, Kautsch, Apok. und Pseud., II, pp. 217-35. 

2 1 : 1, 6-9 ; 10 : 6, 12 ; 16 : 1 ; 19 : 1 ; 22 : 4, 11 f . ; 25 : 4. A complete list and classification 
is given by Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 125, note. According to 1 : 4, this judgment is 
to occur on Mount Sinai, but cf. 27 : 4. 

3 Chap. 22. 

410 : 10. This is called ^wtj aiwvios by the writer. Clearly al&ivios refers to the char- 
acter rather than the endlessness of the life. It is the life of the Age. See also 5:9; 
25:6. 

5 10:17. 



36 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

lously fruitful, and joy and righteousness will be universal, 
the heathen being converted.' Jerusalem thus becomes the 
center of a Jewish empire.^ 

It is difficult to see in these words any hard-and-fast 
theory as to the future. Rather are they extravagant pictur- 
ings of misery and joy. How poetical rather than trans- 
cendental they are appears in the indifference of their author 
to the resurrection. It is not explicitly taught, and, though 
possibly implied,^ it exerts no influence upon the general 
messianic picture.* Possibly the joyous life of the righteous 
follows this indistinctly portrayed resurrection. If so, 
nothing is said concerning their future after their second 
death, and the reader is left in doubt as to whether the 
wicked are to be annihilated or raised to suffer new punish- 
ments.^ 

In the Dream Visions (chaps. 83-90), written during the 
days of Judas Maccabseus^ or John Hyrcanus,^ the interest 
is still shown in angels as the originators of the sin * that 
compelled Jehovah to send the deluge, but still more in the 
misfortunes of Israel.^ In a series of rapid scenes, in which 
sheep, rams, and wild beasts are the chief actors, he traces 
Hebrew history up to the days of the Asmonean revolt. 
The years of misery are described as under the control of the 
seventy shepherds, doubtless the angelic '° representatives of 
heathen oppressors of Judea, whose reign falls into the four 
periods'' in which the sufferings of the little country were 

1 10 : 20-22. 2 25 : 5. 3 So Charles on basis of 22 : 11, 13. 

* Possibly these sensuous pictures are to be referred to the supposed condition 
of the world after the deluge. Cf. 10 : 20 and 12 : 1. The section, chaps. 6-11, however, 
seems to be composed of a large number of traditions and legends uncritically 
joined together. It is probably hopeless to discover consistency in the melange 
that has resulted, yet its purpose is certainly to some degree messianic. 

^Cf. 22 : 10, 11, 13. 6 Bousset, Charles. 

7 Beer and Dillmann. Schiirer places it 166-100 B. C. 

8 84 : 4 ; chaps. 86-88. 9 Chaps. 89, 90. lo So Charles, Schurer, Beer. 
11(1) Till Cyrus (twelve hours) ; (2) till Alexander; (3) till conquest of Palestine 

by Syria about 200 B. C. ; (4) till the messianic period. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 37 

divided, the last, as the author trusted, being about to end 
in the dawn of the messianic age. This new age is intro- 
duced by the day of God's judgment,^ when all evil per- 
sons, including the wicked angels and the seventy shepherds, 
are cast into an abyss of fire.^ Then the new, and appar- 
ently heavenly, Jerusalem is established by God,^ all surviv- 
ing humanity is converted, the dead (again by implication) 
are raised,* the Messiah appears, and all men are transformed 
into his likeness.^ In all this there is little that is transcen- 
dental, and nothing that demands a new earth or a general 
resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is very 
shadowy. The apocalyptic is still true to the spirit of prophet- 
ism. The Messiah, though distinct in the symbolism of the 
white bull, has no function of either judgment or conquest 
assigned him. The new kingdom is a gift of God to a 
suffering Israel. 

In the little "Weeks" apocalypse,^ however, one dis- 
covers the transition to a more transcendental hope. A. 
period of peace and joy follows the overthrow of the enemies 
of Israel, the angels alone are judged, all men repent, and a 
new heaven appears in which goodness and happiness are 
eternal. There is no mention of a Messiah, and this fact, 
as well as the general character of its portrayal of the future, 
leads one to refer this section to another source than its con- 
text' 

When one passes to the later chapters of this oldest sec- 
tion of the Enoch literature, there are again met the elements 
of a triumphant Israel, a day of judgment,® and the suffer- 
ing of the wicked. But there now appear more distinctly 

1 90 : 18-20. 2 90 : 24-27. 3 90 : 28, 29. 

* 90 : 30-33. 5 90 : 37, 38. 6 91 : 12-17 ; chap. 93. 

TThis, however, in the light of Enoch, chaps. 1-36, does not necessitate any- 
radical change in date from that assigned its larger context, but rather argues that 
in its early years Pharisaism was combining its hopes for the appearance of the 
eschatological kingdom with its political forecasts. 

8 99:15; chap. 102; 104:5. 



38 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

some of the characteristics of the new eschatology. The 
wicked are to be slain in sheoP after a fearful struggle with 
Israel's champion. During this conflict the righteous sleep,^ 
to be awakened only that they may share in the resurrection 
of the spirit.^ This resurrection, it should be noted, comes 
at the close, not at the beginning, of the messianic kingdom, 
and is to be followed by the enthronement of those who 
enjoy it.* The Messiah is referred to only in a general way 
as "my son," ^ and his reign is evidently one of struggle 
rather than of blessedness — a tribute to the systematic 
tendency already noted. A similar advance over the earlier 
messianism is seen in the retreat of purely sensuous con- 
ceptions. It is obviously impossible to reduce in any sure 
system these various elements of the hope for the future. 
It may well be doubted whether the writers of these por- 
tions of the Enoch literature had any consistent ideal in 
their minds. We have doubtless reached the frontier of 
certainty when we catalogue the elements of divine deliver- 
ance for Israel, the day of judgment, the punishment of 
the wicked in hell, and the resurrection of the righteous. 
These, at least, are common to the entire literature. A Mes- 
siah, a period of struggle before the wicked are subdued, 
the manner and time of the resurrection, the place and 
nature of the punishment, the length and degree of sensu- 
ousness of the blessings — all these vary with the different 
writers. The tendency away from the sensuous toward the 
transcendental is, however, apparent. 

From such inconsistent and bizarre^ pictures as these, in 
which the imagination shrinks from no extravagant pictures 
of sensuous and transcendent bliss, the transition was easy 

199:11; 100:5; 108:3. 2ioo:5. 

3 103 : 4. There apparently is no resurrection of the body. One cannot help sur- 
mising that this singular expectation bespeaks a philosophical tendency not com- 
monly discovered in pharisaism, but clear in Paul. Cf. his crifAa Trvev^aTiKoi/. 

4108:11,12. 5105:2; c/. 4 Ezra 7:28, 29; 14:9. 6 c/. Isa. 65:20-22; 30:23 f. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 39 

to the next group of Enoch visions (chaps. 37-71). In them 
the literalizing of the apocalypse is clearly begun. To men- 
tion only the most important matters, the Messiah is now dis- 
tinctly individualized with a variety of names — Son of man/ 
the Elect, the Anointed, the Righteous One. He is pre- 
existent^ and a judge ^ conjointly with God himself. In this 
judgment all, both good and evil, even though dead,* share. 
Kings and nobles suffer punishment^ with the evil angels.^ 
No sin goes unpunished, though, except in the case of the 
kings,^ repentance seems always possible through the mercy 
of God.^ Yet even here the scene shifts back to earth. The 
Jews of the dispersion return to Palestine,^ and the Messiah 
reigns^** over a righteous nation happy in the enjoyment of 
peace and equality." Heaven joins the earth, and immortal 
men dwell together with angels in a world forever free from 
sin.^' 

In these visions it is difficult to see anything but the 
phantasies of a glowing faith, utterly untrammeled by the 
conceptions of modern science. They have even less con- 
sistent eschatology than cosmogony. Demons, disobedient 
stars, angels, magical trees, palaces, and mountains of pre- 

1 Unless the sections in which this term is used be held to be post-Christian (see 
BoussET, Jesu Predigt, 105 f . ; Deummond, Jewish Messiah, 61 f . ; Pfleideeee, Das 
Urchristentuvi, 315 f. ; and a good summary of arguments for this position in 
Stalkee, Christology of Jesiis, App.), a view with which it is difficult to agree. 
While interpolation is of course not impossible, all indications, especially the utter 
absence of any reference to the historical Jesus, point against such a hypothesis. 
See LiETZMAXN, Der Menschensohn, pp. 42-8; SchUeee, Geschichte des jUdischen 
Volkes^, Vol. Ill, pp. 200-202 ; Beee in Kautszch, Apok. und Pseud., Vol. II, pp. 230-32. 
BoussET, in his Die Religion des Judentums, pp. 13, 196, has adopted pre-Christian 
date. According to some texts, in 62 : 5 and 69 : 29 the title " that Son of the woman " 
appears ; this reading is rejected, however, by Chaeles, Book of Enoch, p. 164. 

246:1,2; 48:3,6; 62:7. 

345:3; 47:3; 50:4; 62:2. Cf. Chaeles, Enoch; Beee in Kautzsch, Apok. und 
Pseud., in loco. 

•151:1,2. 5 Chaps. 62 and 63. 654:5, 6; chap. 64. "63:6-9. 

8 The position given men in the heavenly kingdom is apparently determined by 
the time of their repentance. Cf. chap. 50. 

9 Chap. 57. 10 45 : 3-5. H 53 : 6, 7. 
1239:5-12; 41:2; 45:4-6; 49:12; 51:4; 58:3; 71:16. 



40 Messianism in the New Testament 

cious stones chase each other in a Waldpurgis night 
dance of oriental imagery. As for definite ethical concepts, 
beyond the most general manipulation of the thoughts of 
sin and punishment, righteousness and reward, they are 
practically neutral. Symbolism itself has all but ceased to 
be symbolic and has become literal. Political rulers and par- 
ties are with difficulty seen to be the chief actors of the new 
apocalypse, and the reader is introduced into an eschatology 
in which the pharisaic dualism reaches a solution in the thin 
air of transcendentalism. 

Far less elaborate than this hope is that of the writer of 
the Haggadist commentary on Genesis, the Book of Jubilees.^ 
Indeed, the messianic hope in any precise sense is all but 
lacking in his book. Like the Ethiopic Enoch, its angel- 
ology and demonology are well developed, and most impor- 
tant events of the Old Testament history are referred to 
superhuman personalities. The evil spirits are under "the 
prince of the Mastema,"^ from whose power the good angels 
protect the righteous, and who at last is to be judged.^ Yet, 
writing as he does in the height of Maccabean success, it is 
not unlikely that the author of Jubilees conceived of the 
messianic age as having already begun.* Members were 
to live a thousand years. The new age apparently was to 
be inaugurated with a widespread study of the law,^ and 
the age was to be free from the influence of Satan.^ The 

1 It is with much hesitation that I place the BooTc of Jubilees in Maccabean 
times. The arguments of Charles, Book of Jubilees, Introduction, § 17, fall far short 
of demonstration, and it is not easy to square all references in the book itself by 
such a theory of its authorship. At the same time, the weight of probabilities is 
somewhat in its favor. See also Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, p. 13; Bohn, 
Studienund Kritiken (1900), pp. 167-84; Littmann in Kautzsch, Apok. imd Pseud., 
Vol. II, pp. 31-8. To the contrary, SchxJeee, Geschichte d. jiid. Volkes^, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 274-80. 

2 Or Prince Mastema, according to the Ethiopic manuscripts. 
3Jtt&., 10:8. 

4 Charles thinks that Enoch, 83-90, shows the same belief, but it is by no means 
obvious. 

5 Jw6., 23: 26, 27; c/. 23:15. ej^ft., 23:29. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 41 

judgment comes at the close of this messianic period, and 
no resurrection precedes it, the only immortality being that 
of the spirit.^ Another passage, however,^ seems to imply 
that the judgment is to precede the establishment of the 
kingdom. But here, as in all Jewish literature, it is impos- 
sible to discover absolute chronological consistency in escha- 
tological descriptions. There is no reference to a Messiah, 
unless it be the very general prophecy concerning Judahs' 
supremacy.^ A bloody triumph of a nation that kept 
Jehovah's law — this was the chief good expected. Terrible 
suffering was to be endured by Jews before their conversion 
to a devotion to the Law,* but just how the new age is to be 
ushered in the author nowhere explains. It is probably 
safe, therefore, to assume that he would not differ from other 
apocalyptic writers in judging its coming to be cataclysmic.^ 
Yet Jubilees is too completely legalistic in tone to justify 
any precise conclusion as to its eschatology, and especially 
as to its messianic hope. One must be content with saying 
that, wherever such elements appear, they are clearly akin 
to the general expectation, as it appears in the contemporary 
literature we have already considered. 

It is not difficult to appreciate the stage reached by this 
new transcendentalism in the noble group of songs that 
sprang into use during the last half -century before Christ — 
the Psalms of Solomon. That these songs are of pharisaic 
origin can hardly be questioned.^ According to the belief 
of their author, misfortune never came to a nation except as 
a punishment for sin. That Judea was suffering, therefore, 

iJw6.,23:31. 2 23:11. 3 31 : 18-20. 123:1-23. 

5 Charles, on the basis of Jw6., 1 : 29 ; 4 : 26 ; 23 : 26-28, says that the author holds to 
gradual transformation of creation, conditioned ethically by the conduct of Israel. 
Book of Jubilees^ p. 9, note. It is impossible to agree with such far-fetched con- 
clusions. 

6 For a general argument see Ryle and James, Psalms of Solomon; Kittel, in 
Kautzsch, Apok. und Pseud., Vol. II, p. 127. For text see Ryle and James and 
Gebhardt, Die Psalmen Salamo. 



42 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

argued long-continued secret wrong-doing on the part of its 
rulers.* The Romans, though their leader had experienced 
God's wrath,^ were but God's agents of punishment;^ the 
real offenders were the degenerate Asmonean high-priests, 
whose faults seem to have been the change of the kingless 
theocracy to a monarchy ; in case a monarchy was inevitable, 
their presumption in usurping the throne of the divinely 
appointed Davidic family; their misuse of their priestly 
office ; and their surrender to Rome. Yet the writer all 
but never makes use of the apocalyptic scheme or method. 
He writes as a good Pharisee, but as a poet rather than a seer. 

It should be remembered that the Pharisees, i^ their 
Chasidim days, had cheerfully submitted to the high-priest- 
hood of the Asmonean house. It was not the displacement 
of the house of Zadok which displeased them, for the Asmo- 
neans were priests,* and any technical difficulties the Pharisees, 
with the people, were content to waive until some prophet 
should appear to solve them finally. It was the monarchy 
as such that the Pharisees opposed. The ideal Judea, com- 
posed of those who were righteous, was impossible as long 
as "sinners" controlled the state.^ A righteous king was 
therefore the first condition of that righteous and glorious 
state for which all Jews longed.^ 

From this point of view the messianic portrait of Pss. 17 
and 18 is quite intelligible. In them the apocalyptic ele- 
ment is all but wanting. The pious are indeed to rise from 
the dead,^ but there is no clear correlation of this eschatology 
with the messianic hope. Yet there is nothing in the Psalms 
inconsistent with the apocalyptic messianism. The picture, 
however, is more personal than in the older apocalypses. 

1 See especially Ps. 1. 2 Ps. 2 : 30, 31. 3 c/. 2 : 7, 8, 17. 

4 According to 1 Mace. 7 : 13, 14, the Chasidim had been ready to submit to the 
Hellenist Alcimus, since he was of the seed of Aaron. 

5C/. 17:26. 67:9; 9:19. 

7 3:16; 14:1-3, 7. For the wicked there is no such hope (3:13-15; 13:10; 14:6; 
15:11). 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 43 

The thought of a kingdom is in marked subordination to 
that of the Messiah. No picture could be more clearly 
drawn than his. Neither a sufferer nor a teacher, pre-exist- 
ent nor miraculously born, a priest like the Asmoneans nor 
an eschatological wonder like the Son of man of Enoch, he 
is the mighty king, the vice-gerent of God. In character he 
is to be sinless,^ obtaining wisdom from God,^ and strong 
through the Holy Sprit. ^ His capital is to be Jerusalem, 
which is first to be purged of all heathen,* and his kingdom 
is to be composed of sanctified Jews,"^ sons of God, among 
whom there will never be pride or oppression or unright- 
eousness of any sort. He is to conquer the entire heathen 
world, and even the sinners — by whom the Asmonean house 
may be meant — will be "convicted in the thoughts of their 
hearts" (vs. 27). The entire earth shall serve him, and he 
will have mercy only npon those who fear him. 

Yet this mighty king is not to be a man of war. He is 
to put no trust in horses or cavalry or bows or armies. His 
conquests are to be wrought "with the word of his mouth." ^ 
The expression is a true echo of pharisaism. The king is 
certainly not to be a teacher or a preacher or a philosopher, 
but the author of the psalm does not wish to be understood 
as counseling war, and therefore falls back on miracle. The 
Christ is to be so mighty that he does not need to fight.^ 

The laissez-faire spirit of pharisaism as regards political 
evils could hardly be better joined with limitless hope. The 
world is to be subjected to a pharisaized Israel,^ over whom 
a great king is to reign as a representative of God; but the 
messianic ideal of these psalms is farther from that of the 

117:35,36. 3 17:37,42. 5 Vss. 26, 32, 33, 36. 

217:31,35. * 17 : 25, 30, 31. 617:36-39. 

7 There is no need, however, of using this fact as a basis for the view that the 
Jews had a double conception of the Christ, sometimes thinking of him as a warrior 
and sometimes as a judge, as in BAiiDENSPEKGER, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu (3ded.), 
pp. Ill f . The two are really two phases of the one conception of the conquering king 

8 Aabs a7ios, 17 : 28. 



44 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Zealots than from that of the apocalypses. One sees in it 
an attempt to express the spirit of apocalyptic without the 
assistance of visions. As the nearest approach made by 
Pharisaism to picturing a literal Jewish state, it demon- 
strates how utterly unworldly even its non-apocalyptic mes- 
sianism had grown. Social evolution, to say nothing of 
revolution, is not thought of. God's Messiah must come 
and miraculously establish the new kingdom. In the mean- 
time pious Jews must wait in patience. 

SECTION IV. the transcendental messianism of 

LATER PHARISAISM 

With the final establishment of the Roman suzerainty, 
the hope of pharisaism turned unreservedly to apocalypses 
in which the judgment is, as might be expected, all-impor- 
tant. As if in terror of any revolutionary bias, the Assump- 
tion of Moses, written during the first years of the Christian 
era, mentions no Messiah and distinctly says that God 
alone will punish the gentiles.^ In the same treatise,^ also, 
suffering is made the incentive, not only to repentance^ and 
religious faith, but also to confidence in the ultimate estab- 
lishment of the kingdom of God. The hostile kingdom of 
evil, with its great king, was to be overcome.* The con- 
demnation of all heathen, the punishment of enemies of God 
in Gehenna, and the surpassing glory of a reunited Israel in 
the new dispensation,^ were to follow. Again the kingdom and 
not the Messiah is central, the latter being unmentioned. 

110:7. 

2 Charles, Assumption of Moses ; Clemen in Kautzsch, Apok. und Pseud. 

3 1 : 18. 

4 Assum. Mos. gives in chap. 8 a striking picture of the persecution of Antiochus 
Epiphanes, but does not, as Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, p. 243, thinks, 
present the king as " the tyrant of the end of the age who rules over the entire 
world." The tyrant, when called "king of the kings of the earth," is evidently 
viewed historically rather than eschatologically. Cf. Ezek. 26 : 7 ; Dan. 2 : 37 ; Ezra 
7 : 12. As Charles, Assumption of Moses, p. 30, says, the phrase is a title peculiar to 
oriental monarchs. 

5 10:1-10. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Phaeisees 45 

God is a great judge, granting salvation only to the king- 
dom's members. Even more central is the final judgment 
of both angels and men in the Secrets of Enoch, also written 
some time near the beginning of the Christian era/ After 
it, there begins for the righteous who have entered the king- 
dom a new age, endless and blessed, without illness or 
sorrow of any sort.^ Of the Messiah or resurrection there 
is no mention. It is noteworthy also that in this work the 
doctrine of the millennium is distinctly formulated and de- 
rived.^ 

Transcendentalism is seen in its final form in the various 
cycles of apocalypses that were brought together after the 
destruction of the Jewish state. As the persecution of 
Antiochus Epiphanes had given rise to the Daniel and 
Enoch apocalypses, so the new catastrophe produced the 
Apocalypse of Barucli and 4 Esdras.^ Within the former 
it is perhaps possible to distinguish two sorts of forecasts of 
the future, the one evidently optimistic, and the other hope- 
less, as to the future of Israel as a nation. In both alike it 
is the judgment and the messianic kingdom that fill the 
seer's horizon. In the one cycle, the future holds a new 
Jerusalem, already prepared in heaven;^ a mighty Messiah 
who should slay all those who had ruled or even known the 

146:3; 48:8,9; 19 : 1-5 ; 65 : 6-10 ; cf. also 9:lff.; 10:3-6; 18:1-6. Moefill and 
Charles, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch. 

2 61: 2 f.; 65:8-10. 3 32-33:2. 

4 Genuinely critical treatment of these two works may be said to have begun 
with the article by Kabisch, " Die Quellen der Apocalypse Baruchs," Jahrbiicher 
fur protest. Theol., 1891, pp. 66-107. He regards Baruch as the work of at least four 
writers, and as consisting of a groundwork (1-23; 31-34; 75-87) ; two complete visions 
(86-40 and 53-74)— in which he is supported by DeFaye, Les apocalypses juives'^ frag- 
ments of a third apocalypse (24:3-29); and various material, including editorial 
passages, like 28 : 5 ; 30 : 1 ; 32 : 2-4 ; 35 ; 76 : 1. Chaeles, Apocalypse of Baruch, finds 
three " Messiah apocalypses" (27-30:1; 36-40; 53-74; chap. 85); and two groups of 
sections (1:1; 43-44.7; 45-46:6; 77-82; 84; 86, 87; and 9-12; 13-25; 30:2-35; 41-42; 
44 : 8-15 ; 47-52 ; 75, 76 ; 83) . It is difficult not to feel the force of the arguments for 
some broad division of the book into constituent material, but one may well reserve 
an opinion as to such elaborate analysis. 

5 4:2-6; 32:2-4. 



46 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Jewish nation ; ^ and a new age in which all evil and physical 
pain should disappear.^ For the other, the future holds no 
such glory for Israel. Jerusalem had been destroyed, Israel 
hopelessly defeated, and the end of the corruptible world 
seemed the one precondition of permanent happiness. Not 
a new nation or even a new age for Israel was to be 
expected, but a new world-epoch^ in which the very dead 
should be raised,* and in which the world should become 
immortaP and invisible.^ At this conviction even apocalypse 
halted. Unlike the earlier writers (unless we except Sibyl- 
line Oracles, III, 97-807), the author of the Apocalypse of 
Baruch regarded the messianic kingdom itself as but tem- 
porary. It marked the end of "the present age,"^ was to be 
followed by a general resurrection, after which was to come 
the final judgment,^ and a new age in which corruption 
should be no more.^ When each man has been given his 
deserts, then begins the everlasting age in which time 
ceases, the righteous, like angels, dwell in heaven and not on 
the earth, and the wicked agonize in fire.^*^ In 4 JEsdras the 
picture is more elaborated, but, with one exception, hardly 
different in essentials. The pre-existent Christ" rises from 
the sea in company with Enoch, Moses, and Elijah. ^^ For 
the first time in Jewish literature — unless we except the 
questionable instance in Enoch, 105 : 2 — he is addressed by 
God as "My Son, the Messiah." ^^ He destroys the united 

1 72 : 1-6 ; cf. chaps. 39, 40 ; 70 : 7-10. 2 44 ; 8-15 ; chaps. 73 ; 74. 3 32 : 6. 4 50 : 2. 

5 51:3; c/. 48:50. 651:8. -40:3; 74:3. 8Chap.30. 

9 44:12; c/. 85:5. 1051:1-12. ni2:32; 13:26, 52; 14:9. 

124 Esd7-as,Q:2Q (" they shall see the men who have been taken up, who have not 
tasted death from their birth," i. e., Enoch, Moses, Elijah) ; 13: 2, 3, 5, 25, 52. 

13 4 Esdras, 1 : 28, 29 ; cf. 13 : 32, 37, 52 ; 14 : 9. Dalman, Words of Jesus (Eng. trans.) , 
pp. 268-74, is doubtless correct in arguing that Ps. 2:7 is the ancestor of the Chris- 
tian use of the term 6 vio? tou Qeov in a messianic sense. At the same time he recog- 
nizes the surprising lack of evidence tending to establish a general use of the 
term in that sense in Jewish literature. So far as lexicography goes, it is diflficult 
to show that the term comes over into the New Testament from any source whatso- 
ever. Obviously this is to prove too much, for it is impossible to account for the 
term in the New Testament literature on ontological grounds. Were it otherwise, 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 47 

enemies of IsraeP without war, but with fire that proceeds 
from his mouth. ^ The ten tribes of Israel return to dwell 
with their brethren in a new Jerusalem, not made with 
hands, but which had come down from heaven.^ At this 
point, however, appears a new element which one cannot 
help believing is in some measure due to Christian influences. 
The Messiah and all mankind die, the world being for an 
entire week locked in death.* Then comes the general resur- 
rection, and God establishes the judgment in which the 
endless destiny of every man is fixed. The rewards and 
punishments of life have already been experienced in some 
degree,^ but now the righteous go to an eternal paradise and 
the wicked to eternal hunger and pain.^ Thereafter God is 
supreme. 

It is not necessary to trace the development farther. The 
alleged^ two cycles of conceptions in Baruch, and to some 
extent in 4 Esdras, in which the historical and the transcen- 
dental element are apparently interwoven, are not to be too 
readily treated as documentary. Quite as likely are they but 

there would certainly be some use of the ontological concept. The case is, however, 
not so anomalous as might appear. The idea of sonship of God is by no means 
uncommon in the Old Testament. Thus of Israel as the special object of Jehovah's 
love (Exod. 4:22, 23; Deut. 14: 1, 2; Hos. 11: 1) ; of some individual who may be con- 
ceived of holding a peculiar relation to God (2 Sam. 7 : 14 ; 1 Chron. 17 : 13, 14; 22 : 10 ; 
Pss. 2:7; 89 : 20-37.) Somewhat similarly in Philo, God is figuratively said to be the 
father of innumerable virtues, graces, persons, and even the Logos. In all Philo 
uses the analogy, occasionally with startling explanations, something like 300 times. 
I wish to express my indebtedness to an as yet unpublished paper by A. S. Caeman. 
More particularly; the viol ^eoO seems to have acquired a somewhat technical force: 
"those who are (or are to be) members of the kingdom of God" {Pss. Sol., 17:27; 
cf. Luke 20: 36). In the light of this usage, both of the analogy and of the term, it is 
not difficult to see how, as in 4 I^sdras and the interpolations of Enoch, the Messiah 
should have been regarded as 6 uibs toO fleoO, or simply uios Oeov^par excellence. See 
Baeton, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1902, Part I, pp. 78-91; for an attempt to 
connect the term with current Roman usage see Deissmann, Bible Studies (Eng. 
trans.), pp. 166 f. 

112:31-34. 

2 13 : 37, 38, an echo of Pss. Sol., 17 : 39, perhaps in its turn derived from Isa. 11 : 4. 

313:39-47; 7:26; 10:55; 13:36. ^7:29,30. 57:31-35. 

6 6 : 5 f ., though these verses are not beyond question. '' 8 : 52-59. 

8 See Chaeles, Apoc. Bar., Intro. 



48 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



two hemispheres of the same hope. To a modern, the 
material already presented from the earlier apocalypses is 
hardly less an inconsistent combination of political hope 
and religious imagery. The fact seems to be that the Jew 
could not distinguish between the supremacy of God and 
the supremacy of his people Israel.^ For teachers surrounded 
by heathenism such a point of view was inevitable. It was 
inconceivable that God should not finally be supreme ; but 
it was just as inconceivable that his people should not be 
supreme as well. Inevitably the mind of a seer would thus 
waver between the two descriptions. One moment he 
would picture in non-political words the triumph of God, 
and the next, with precisely the same denouement in mind, 
he would picture the triumph and imperial supremacy of 
the Jew. 

Similarly, in these apocalypses appears another contradic- 
tion to be noticed in all literature of the class: the dualism 
as regards the enemy to be overcome. Eepeatedly the 
reader is confused by the sudden transition from an obvi- 
ously political enemy — at first Antiochus Epiphanes and 
afterward the Roman empire — to Satan or evil angels. Here 
again a modern mind is sure to be confused and tempted to 
appeal to the ever ready deus ex machina of analytic criti- 
cism. But from the point of view of the Jew there was no 
difficulty in such identification of politics and demonology. 
If the kingdom of God was to be in practice the kingdom 
of the Jews, so the enemy of God was in practice some politi- 
cal oppressor. It was as easy to identify the one set of 
parallels as the other. Middle terms like Edom^ or the 
visions of DanieP or Nero as Antichrist* were always at hand. 

1 BoussET, Die Religion des Judenthums, pp. 201-3. 

2 4 Esdras, 6 : 8-10 ; Targ. Jon. Lev., 26 : 44. Cf. Bachek, Agada, Vol. I, p. 292. 

3 4 Esdras, 12 : 11 ; 5 : 3, 11, 12 ; Baruch, 39 ; Josephus, Ant., x, 11 : 7. 

4 Ascension of Isaiah, 3 : 13—5 : 1. Cf . Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, LI-LXXIII, 
and in general on this point Bousset, Religion des Judenthums, pp. 204-6. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 49 

Even when such process of identification was not utilized, 
the Jewish mind would find no difficulty in demanding the 
punishment of both sets of enemies. Indeed, it is to be 
noticed that the punishment of wicked men — who must cer- 
tainly be heathen — was made the same as that of the devil 
and his angels/ 

Another inconsistency for the modern mind lies in the 
expected resurrection. It is apparent that by the time the 
messianic hope had reached this stage of its development, 
immortality, at least of the righteous, had become one of its 
integral parts. The passage from the age of present misery 
to the age of glory and joy logically involved an emphasis 
upon the continuance of human life, not only in its national, 
but in its individual form. The Wisdom of Solomon pre- 
sents this hope in perhaps its most perfect form: 

"The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; 
And no torment shall touch them." 

"For even if in the sight of men they be punished, 
Their hope is full of immortality." ^ 

This hope of immortality, as has already appeared, was 
by no means the child of messianism. Before the hope of 
the prophets had finally been transformed by the apocalyptic 
tendency, the pious Jew had reached a clear faith in a life 
after death. Not to trace the earlier stages of this hope, in 
which there are few elements that do not appear in most 
primitive religions,^ it will be necessary only to call attention 
to the general silence as regards the conditions of the 
wicked dead. That they are annihilated it would be hardly 
safe to affirm, although the Wisdom of Solomon^ distinctly 

1 Enoch, chaps. 62, 63, especially 63:6; c/. Matt. 25:41. 

2 Wis. Sol., 3:1-3. 

3 Thus shades, the pit, the upper and the under world. For a general summary 
of the Hebrew belief see Chaeles, A Critical History of Eschatology, etc., pp. 152f.; 
but one needs to be constantly on guard as regards the author's exegesis. 

*3: 9, 17:14; 15:2,3. 



50 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

limits immortality to the righteous. More probable is it 
that Pharisaism and Essenism, as described by Josephus/ rep- 
resented the current religious belief in these particulars, and 
that the Sadducees were exceptional in holding that "souls 
die with the body." Yet the further statements of Josephus 
in this connection are well substantiated by the entire litera- 
ture of the Pharisees. "They believe," he says, "that 
there will be under the earth rewards and punishments, 
according as men have lived virtuously or viciously in this 
life; and the latter souls are to be detained in an everlasting 
prison, but the former will have power to live again." In 
the Jewish War'^ he says expressly that the Pharisees 
believe that "the souls of good men only are removed into 
other bodies, while the souls of bad men are punished with 
eternal punishment." This limitation of the resurrection to 
the righteous is in keeping with the entire pharisaic litera- 
ture, and reappears in the silence of Paul and the other New 
Testament writers concerning the resurrection of the wicked. 
These words of Josephus enable us also to see clearly the 
force of the references already noted in the literature to the 
place and nature of the punishment which, according to 
Pharisaism, awaited the unrighteous. Sheol was originally 
simply "the pit" under the earth to which all dead persons 
were supposed to go. Thanks to the imagination of the 
apocalypsists, however, it became a place of fire, first for 
evil angels,^ and later for evil men.* A more fully developed 
doctrine of hell as a place of punishment appears in Enochs 
22 : 1-14. According to this passage, hell is divided into 
four sections: for the martyrs, the righteous, the sinners who 
lived prosperously on the earth, and sinners who had been 
to some degree punished on the earth. The souls of the 

1 Ant., xviii, 1:3-5; War, ii, 8 : 2-14. 2 ii, g : 14. . 3 Enoch, 21. 

* Enoch, 27 : 2, 3 ; 48 : 9 ; 54 : 1, 2 ; 62 : 12, 13 ; 90 : 26, 27. It is worth noticing that in 
these passages there is no trace of the purgatorial fires of rabbinism. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Pharisees 51 

third class were to be slain ^ in the day of judgment, but 
those of the fourth class were to be left in sheol, bereft of 
all hope of resurrection. 

From these representations it is safe to infer that the chief 
reward to which the Pharisee looked forward was the resur- 
rection of the body. Goodness was a matter of keeping the 
law, but not for its own sake. Rather was it a means by 
which one should escape the power of death, and, unlike the 
wicked, pass over into the glorious future set by the king- 
dom and conditioned by the obtaining of a new body. This 
identification of the heavenly reward of the righteous with 
the resurrection, coupled with the fact that such reward 
could only come to the righteous, i. e., those who kept the 
law sufficiently to be acquitted at the day of judgment, fur- 
nishes an essential part of the Pauline scheme of justification 
and salvation. 

With the introduction of the resurrection into the mes- 
sianic concept, Pharisaism reached the limits of its transcen- 
dental hope. Further it could not go and remain Jewish. 
The new world was a Jewish empire and the new Jerusalem, 
inhabited though it might be with risen saints, had still its 
temple and its worshiping Jews and proselytes. Logical 
difficulties might be numberless; they were as nothing in 
comparison with any teaching that de-ethnicized the new 
age. Lacking scientific habits of mind, the Pharisees had 
boundless confidence in their nation. To question its future 
supremacy was to question Jehovah's love and power. 

SECTION V. THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ESCHATOLOGICAL 

MESSIANISM 

Such considerations as these, reinforced as they are by 
the evident variety seen in the different survivals of Jewish 
literature, should warn us against believing that there ever 

1 This is not equivalent to annihilation, in the light of Enoch, 108 : 3 and 99 : 11. 
But what does it mean? 



52 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

was an "orthodox" messianic hope among the Jews. Among 
the rabbis of the second century it may be that there are to 
be seen tendencies making toward an authoritative formu- 
lation of such a hope, but among the Pharisees of New 
Testament times messianism, both in its general and its 
specific character, was in process of development. Any 
systematic statement of its content is therefore liable to be 
misleading, and most of all any statement that depends upon 
a classified accumulation of the various elements of the 
various writings.^ The only safe method of constructing 
any schematic statement is that which distinguishes those 
elements which are clearly universal and fundamental from 
those that are to a greater or less degree peculiar to any 
given document or teacher, and sets such variations in 
genetic relationship with the common elements.^ 

If now we formulate the common elements of eschato- 
logical messianism as found in the apocalyptic literature of 
Pharisaism, we obtain the following results: 

1. Two ages, the one present and the other future — 
"this age" and "the coming age." 

2. The belief that the present age is evil, under the 
influence and even control of Satan,^ and abounding in all 
sorts of misery, including disease and pain and death.* 

3. The belief that the good age is to be introduced by 

lAs, for instance, is given by Schueee, Vol. II, ii, and Weber, Jiidische Theo- 
logie. 

2 SchiJeee's elaborate presentation of the messianic hope, Gesch.jiid. Volkes^, 
% 29, is misleading at this point. By his method of accumulation of materials, he 
gives the impression that all people held to all the elements he has tabulated. How 
far this is from the actual facts will be apparent to any person who reads his pres- 
entation of his data, or, better, reads the literature itself. ScHtJEEE's text, Vol. 
II 3, pp. 550, 551, is apparently intended to correct any misapprehension caused by 
his method. 

3 It is worth noticing that this conception of Satan is of late origin. Very pos- 
sibly it is the result of Parsic influence. Cf. Stave, Einfluss des Parsismus auf das 
Judenthunu esp. pp. 272 f. ; J. Weiss, Predigt Jesu^, pp. 30-35. 

^E. g. .Jubilees, 10:8; 17:16; Assum. Moses, 10:1 f.; Testament XII. Pat.; Dan. 
5 ; Naph. 2, 3; Lev. 19 ; Issa. 6. 



Apocalyptic Messianism of the Phaeisees 53 

God or his representative through some sort of catastrophe.^ 
In some cases this catastrophe is developed into a period of 
struggle between God's representative and his enemies. 

4. The judgment, which is at times identified with the 
catastrophic punishment of the enemies of the Jews. The 
decisions of this judgment are final. The future of the gen- 
tiles, however, is not altogether distinct, varying between 
destruction in a gehenna of fire to a conversion and subjec- 
tion to the new Jewish kingdom. The fact that reference is 
sometimes made to two judgments^ emphasizes the central 
portion of the judicial element. 

The judge is to be God, although occasionally the Mes- 
siah himself is so conceived.^ Once also the righteous are 
regarded as judges.* 

5. The introduction of the new kingdom of the Jews, 
which is also understood to be the kingdom of God or 
heaven. This kingdom is the great characteristic of the 
new age. It comes like it, not by way of evolution, but as 
God's gift. A variation at this point is the introduction of 
a messianic kingdom of limited duration — four hundred or 
a thousand years — which is followed by the final establish- 
ment of God's control over all men. 

It is to be borne in mind that the Pharisee, as distinct 

1 A reference in Assuin. Moses, 1 : 18, to repentance as in some way related to the 
coming of the kingdom, is unique in pre-rabbinic literature. How prominent it 
later became may be seen in Sank., 91b; Fesitta, 1636. See Webee, Judische Theolo- 
gie, pp. 348 f. In Assum. Moses, 1 : 18, the repentance does not condition the "consum- 
mation of the end of the days," but is the first result of such a consummation. Cf. 
also the relation of the conversion of the gentiles in Assum. Moses, chap. 12. 

^E.g., in Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Esdras, Enoch literature, and Wisdom of 
Solomon. In rabbinical literature there is even a threefold judgment. Cf. Eisen- 
MEXGEE, Entdecktes Judenthum, Vol. II, pp. 950 f. 

3 Enoch, 45 : 3 ; 55 : 4 ; 61 : 8 ; 62 : 2 ; 69 : 27 ; Sib. Oracles, iii, 286. 

4 Wisdom of Solomon, 3:8; cf. Ecclus. 4 : 15. See also the forecast of crowns and 
thrones prepared for the righteous and awaiting them at the resurrection, Ascen. 
Is., 7 : 22 ; 8 : 26 ; 9 : 10-13, 18, 24, 25 ; 11 : 40. But these passages are of Christian origin. 
Later Jewish thought conceived of the messianic age as one of struggle and placed 
the judgment at its close. Cf. Webee, Judische Theologie, § 88. It also demands 
the resurrection of the bodies of the righteous. 



54 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

from the Zealot, did not desire to inaugurate this kingdom, 
but to wait God's pleasure. The later rabbis, it is true, were 
swept from this position, and under Akiba did attempt the 
establishment of a new Jewish and messianic state by force 
of arms, but the Pharisees simply waited for God's initiative.^ 

6. The resurrection of the righteous. Here variation is 
also to be seen in that sometimes the resurrection and the 
judgment are made contemporaneous, and occasionally there 
seem to be two resurrections, one preceding the messianic 
kingdom and the other introducing the final reign of God.^ 

7. The personal Messiah. This, however, is not an expli- 
citly described element in all the messianic conceptions. He 
would of course be always implied. There is no contrast 
between a fighting and a judging Christ, and no reference 
to a dying or a suffering Christ. He might be a man 
especially "anointed" for his work, or a superhuman 
character. 

The coming of Elijah, though not unexpected by pre- 
Christian Judaism, was not so prominent as in rabbinism 
proper. 

1 Josephus's refusal to give the one interpretation to Dan., chaps. 11 and 12, 
required by his context {War, iv, 6:3; Ant,, x, 11:7) shows that the Pharisees 
expected the future supremacy of the Jewish people. 

2 The status of the righteous dead between death and the resurrection is not set 
forth in Jewish literature with any consistency. Some rabbis evidently thought 
that this interval was spent in "paradise." Cf. Enoch, 39:3-12; 60:8-23; 61:12; 
70:3,4; 71:16,17. 4 Esdras, 7:30-34, speaks of the righteous dead as being in a 
"storehouse;" cf. 4:35. Such or similar views were especially held by the Jews of 
the Dispersion. See SchCeee, Ges. jUd. Volkes^, Vol. II, p. 549, note. See also 
Castelli, "The Future Life in Eabbinical Literature," Jewish Quarterly Beview, 
Vol. I (1889), pp. 314-52. 



PAKT II 
THE MESSIANISM OF JESUS 



'•■ ..»> 5 



••^ 



N • 



CHAPTER I 

CRITICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS 

In any discussion of the sayings of Jesus critical pro- 
cesses must always be presupposed. It is by no means to 
be assumed that the records contained in our four gospels 
are verbatim reports of the words of Jesus. With the evi- 
dence of textual criticism, the patristic gospels, and the 
Fourth Gospel at hand, it is to exercise but ordinary caution 
when we carefully scrutinize any reported saying. Above 
all, there must always be recognized the possibility that the 
universal eschatological messianism of the early church 
should have been read back into the sayings of Jesus. 

At the same time, however, it is not difficult to reach 
certain critical positions without attempting at the outset a 
precise opinion as to just how great an allowance should be 
made for the subjectivism of the evangelists. While it is 
obviously impossible to enter fully into a discussion of the 
grounds for such positions, it will perhaps conduce to a 
better understanding of what may be said in the following 
pages, if such positions be briefly stated. 

Sufficient evidence is already at hand to warrant us in 
believing that there exist in our synoptic gospels two classes 
of material.^ One class is composed of narratives of the 
deeds of Jesus. Chief of such material is a collection to all 
intents and purposes the same as our present gospel of Mark.^ 

'^Cf. especially Weknle, Die synoptische Frage; Bukton, "Some Principles of 
Literary Criticism and their Application to the Synoptic Problem," Decennial Pub- 
lications of the University of Chicago; and A Short Introduction to the Gospels. 

2 The question as to whether or not the original sources of the synoptic gospels 
were in Aramaic (as with Dalman) or in Hebrew (as with Resch) does not demand 
attention in the present study. Nor does it yet appear that we are likely to account 
for the variations in parallel sayings, and thus come nearer the actual words of 

57 



58 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Another, and for our purpose much more important, class 
of sources is that comprising collections of the sayings of 
Jesus. Chief among these would be that known as the 
Logia of Matthew. 

The combination of the different collections of these two 
classes of sources in varying proportions gave us our synop- 
tic gospels. Just which collection in each group is the older, 
or whether any in the group of narratives antedates those in 
the group of sayings, it is not necessary for our purpose to 
decide. Far more important is it to decide which of the 
variant forms of a saying is the older and thus more probably 
represents the actual thought of Jesus. At this point we 
may safely use this canon: that saying is more probably 
genuine which treats of messianic matters in any other way 
than that which characterized apostolic belief. The trust- 
worthiness of sayings which do not contradict, but agree 
with, apostolic belief must be decided on these more general 
critical grounds: (1) Such sayings as appear in Mark as well 
as in Matthew or Luke may be used with confidence. (2) 
Such sayings as are common to Matthew and Luke are also 
to be used with confidence as representing the thought of 
Jesus. (3) In the case of sayings which occur in both Luke 
and Matthew, but in different forms, the preference will, on 
the basis of internal evidence, be given sometimes to the 
Lukan and sometimes to the Matthean form. The reason 
for this uncertainty, as far as Matthew is concerned, lies in 
his tendency to give new literary form to his material, in the 
less specific character of his version of parallel sayings, and 
in the interpolatory use made by the first gospel of material 

Jesus by retranslating our Greek gospels into either Aramaic or Hebrew. The 
results of such a method as yet are interesting rather than convincing. 

That our present gospel of Mark shows the influence of Matthew or the 
Matthean Logia (Badham, Influence of the Gospel of Matthew upon Mark; J. Weiss, 
Das dlteste Evangelium) , and that it is itself composite, may very likely be true, but 
such highly refined critical processes as such a possibility demands, in order to be- 
come probability, have not brought very tangible results as yet. See J. Weiss, 
Marcusevangeliuni, 



Ckitioal Presuppositions 59 

contained in proper contexts in the third. On the other 
hand, Luke seems at times to have made changes from sub- 
jective reasons.^ 

In certain cases Luke has apparently used narrative 
materials different from those employed by either Mark or 
Matthew. Here the Lukan account bears every evidence of 
late origin, and in no way proves an exception to the general 
principle, already enunciated, of the primary value of the 
Markan account. It is not impossible, also, that in the case 
of certain sayings dealing with questions of wealth the 
Lukan gospel includes material of Ebionitic origin. Such 
material, however, for our present purpose may be largely 
disregarded, as it is messianic only in the most general 
sense, and introduces no elements which are not found in 
sayings about which there can be no reasonable question. 

A consideration of the utmost importance concerns the 
reworking of sayings in the different gospels. Practically 
without exception, these reworkings show an advance toward 
the schematic messianism of the apostolic age. It is not 
difficult to recognize these expansions and modifications, and 
their existence is a constant warning against a too ready 
attribution to Jesus of appeals to current messianic ideas. 

The problem involved in any use of the Fourth Gospel is 
admittedly intricate. The general tendency of criticism 
seems to be, on the whole, toward insisting upon the impos- 
sibility of separating the sayings of Jesus from the editorial 
element of the gospel. Such agnosticism does not appear 
to be wholly justifiable. That the editorial element in the 
gospel is very large is apparent from even a superficial 
study, but much of the argument against the originality of 
Johannine sayings of Jesus is based upon the position that 
Jesus did not assume messianic importance until Csesarea 

lOn the Sermon on the Mount see article by Votaw in Hastings's Dictionary of 
the Bible, supplementary volume, and Bacon, The Servion on the Mount. 



60 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Philippi, and that therefore the early portion of the Fourth 
Gospel is without historical value. As will appear later in 
our discussion, this is a point which cannot be established on 
sufficiently independent grounds to warrant the rejection of 
the facts contained in the chapters of the gospel. For the 
purpose of discovering the sources to be used in tracing the 
messianic thought of Jesus, it would be a distinct begging 
of the question to declare that nothing can be genuine 
which portrays an early development of the messianic con- 
sciousness on the part of Jesus. Just when that conscious- 
ness dawned is the precise question under discussion. 
Before it can be answered it will be necessary to establish 
the worth of the Johannine material by the use of inde- 
pendent criteria. If it should appear that there is absolute 
contradiction between the messianic portrayal of Mark and 
that of John, the choice then necessary would favor Mark ; 
but such contradiction has never yet been fairly established. 
Nor is it by any means impossible at many points to dis- 
tinguish sharply between the editorial comment and doctrine, 
and the sayings of Jesus which lie below them. Even when 
such line of cleavage is not immediately evident, it can be 
pretty thoroughly established that most of the sayings rep- 
resented by the Fourth Grospel as those of Jesus are really 
echoes of similar sayings of Jesus contained in the synoptic 
tradition. It is true that the term *' kingdom of God" is 
not commonly used in the Fourth Gospel, but the term 
*' eternal life" is clearly an equivalent to the idea of mem- 
bership in such kingdom. The eschatological point of view 
predominates in the Fourth Gospel quite as truly as in the 
synoptics. In so far, therefore, as the sayings of Jesus in 
their Johannine form are similar in content to those of the 
synoptic cycles, it is hard to see why they should not be 
used as sources for constructive statements. In cases where 
there is no such echo of the synoptic logia, the question of 



Critical Presuppositions 61 

authenticity must be decided very largely through a decision 
as to whether or not a saying is in a section of editorial dis- 
quisition, and whether it is in general harmony with the 
thought in the synoptic cycle. Generally speaking, it will 
be found that, outside of the references to the early mes- 
sianic career of Jesus, the Fourth Gospel contains nothing 
from Jesus that is new. More than the synoptics it empha- 
sizes certain elements of Jesus' teaching, notably those of 
the Holy Spirit, and of the superhuman relationships exist- 
ing between himself and God. Undoubtedly, too, it 
represents a more developed tendency toward apologetic 
interpretation than that discoverable even in Matthew. But, 
after all, it is a question of degree rather than of sort of 
treatment, and at least as far as messianic elements are con- 
cerned the problems involved are by no means beyond solu- 
tion. 



CHAPTER II 

THE MESSIANISM OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 

It is by no means to be inferred from the discussion of 
the pharisaic literature that apocalyptic, eschatological 
messianism was universal among the Jewish people.^ 
Popular messianism, as has already appeared, was rather of 
the political, revolutionary type. Yet both parties awaited 
the Day of Judgment, and either could use the vocabulary 
of the other. There was, further, always a possibility that 
the old message of prophetism might furnish a common 
ground upon which both might stand. That message, how- 
ever, was never uttered. The call which stirred the common 
people, however it may have been interpreted by them, was 
eschatological, and not religio-political ; apocalyptic, and not 
revolutionary. In the person who uttered it, John the 
Baptist, we have a man speaking, indeed, in the spirit of 
prophecy, but under the control of that messianism which 
had grown up in the pharisaic period.^ 

John the Baptist is always regarded by the New Testa- 
ment writers^ as the inaugiirator of the great movement of 

1 Baldenspeegee, Selbstbewusstsein Jesu^, pp. 203-7, has probably underrated 
the difEusion of apocalyptic influences, especially since, as has already been noted, 
the book of Daniel was in universal use. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence, 
fit to be taken seriously, of the existence among the Jews of a sect of apocalyptic 
Pietists. It, like the similar body of religionists, " Die Stillen im Lande," may have 
existed, but the historical student must yet relegate that possibility to the region of 
conjecture. 

2 It is difficult to see why we should question the trustworthiness of the Lukan 
account of John's mission. There is certainly nothing in it that is in any way con- 
tradicted by the common synoptic source or by Matthew, or by later references of 
New Testament writers. The reference in Josephus (Ant., xviii, 5:2), whose genu- 
ineness, indeed, is not above suspicion (Schueek, Geschichte des jildischen Volkes^, 
Vol. I, p. 438, n. 24), compels us to believe that John's career and preaching were 
such as would suggest social revolution. 

3Markl:l-3; Johnl:l-6: Actsl:22; 10:37; 13:,24,35. 

62 



The Messianism of John the Baptist 63 

which Christianity was the outcome. Although the j^ew 
Testament gives us few data, they are sufficient to enable us 
to formulate an opinion concerning him and his work. The 
appearance of the man and his methods were both adapted 
to attract the attention of the people and to stir the nation. 
Of agitators there had been many, and of revolutionists, but 
there had been no one who so completely fulfilled the popu- 
lar conception as to what a prophet should be.^ His long 
hair, his fasting, his rude clothing, his intensity, his own 
estimate of himself, all argued the prophetic office. The 
message which John delivered was exceedingly simple.^ 
The Christ was at hand, the judgment was soon to be estab- 
lished, and punishment was soon to be inflicted upon the 
wicked. Such preaching is evidently a prophetic announce- 
ment of an approaching messianic era. John does not 
mention specifically the two ages, or Satan's kingdom, or 
the messianic kingdom and the resurrection of the dead. 
His attention seems to be entirely centered upon the coming 
Judge. In this obviously he is in advance of messianism, as 
we have seen it, in which the person of Christ is generally 
subordinated to the idea of the kingdom. But he is in sym- 
pathy with the spirit of pharisaism in that he emphasizes 
the idea of judgment and the necessity for righteousness on 
the part of those who wish to be members of the kingdom. 
It is to be noticed, further, that, as in pharisaism, this 
repentance and achievement of righteousness do not condi- 
tion the coming of the messiah. Repentance is the means 
by which a man determines his fate. Righteousness neither 
hastens nor delays the divinely fixed event. 

The recognition of the redemptive work of Jesus con- 
tained in the phrase "the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world "^ is certainly not so easily explained. 

1 Mark 1 : 6 and paraUels. 2 Mark 1:7; Matt. 3 : 7-12 ; Luke 3 : 7-y. 

3 John 1:29. 



64 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

In view of all the facts at our disposal, it is impossible to 
believe the Baptist conceived of Jesus as fundamentally a 
sacrifice for sin. Possibly the explanation is in part critical. 
John 1:29 may be an editorial expansion of John 1:36. 
The hypothesis is by no means improbable, in view of the 
general character of the Fourth Gospel, and would account 
for the appearance in a saying ascribed to the Baptist of a 
soteriological concept of later origin. If it be regarded as 
tenable, the characterization of Jesus as the Lamb of God 
would mean simply that the Baptist saw in him an ntter 
absence of the revolutionary furor of the Zealots. Such a 
role he might well have believed to be temporary, and later 
have grown impatient for the establishment of the judgment 
he had predicted. When it is recalled that in the estima- 
tion of Jesus' own disciples his work as a teacher and healer 
delayed his assuming his proper functions of Messiah, it is 
not difficult to see how John could have been ready to 
believe that Jesus might begin his work in a quiet, undemon- 
strative way, and later take up a more obviously messianic 
role. His later attitude toward Jesus ^ would thus be one 
of disappointment rather than of curiosity or newly awakened 
interest. 

It is, however, rather remarkable that John so expressly 
repudiates the idea that the acquittal in the judgment and 
membership in the kingdom are in any way conditioned by 
Jewish descent. "Whether or not he could have stated the 
matter more positively and said that anyone, Jew or gentile 
who repented might became a member of the kingdom, it 
would hardly be safe to affirm. In view of his subsequent 
questionings concerning Jesus' conception of the r6le of 
Messiah,^ it would probably be safer to conclude that his 
position was negative. That is, while holding to the general 
Israelitic character of the messianic kingdom, he made it 

1 Matt. 11 : 2, 3 ; Luke 7 : 18-21. 2 Matt. 11 : 2-19 ; Luke 7 : 18-35. 



The Messianism of John the Baptist 65 

clear that the Jew would not enter it simply as a Jew, but as 
a penitent Jew. Repentance, not birth, was to be the ground 
of acquittal. 

The act of baptism which John adopted to symbolize 
repentance as a preparation for entrance into the kingdom 
consequent upon the forgiveness of sins, can hardly be said 
to have been invented by him. Ablutions were common 
throughout the Jewish cult, though administered by one's 
self rather than by another. The real significance given 
the bath by John was however new. Its symbolism was by 
him connected, as it proved inseparably, with the messianic 
hope. And instead of the repeated ablutions of current 
Judaism, it was administered but once — a fit symbol of that 
one supreme act of penitence and abandonment of sin 
demanded of those who believed the good news of the com- 
ing salvation.^ 

That John was in no wise revolutionary or ascetic in his 
teaching, however he might himself live, is to be seen in 
directions given by him to the various classes of penitents, 
as recorded by Luke.^ These words enable us to see again 
how thoroughly he was in sympathy with the pharisaic rather 
than the Zealot messianism. His converts were not to 
abandon their ordinary way of living, but were to maintain 
a righteous mode of life. Such mode of life was, however, 
not conceived of by him as a part of the messianic kingdom 
proper, but rather as the sort of life which became penitents 
who were awaiting the messianic kingdom. With John 
clearly the kingdom was still future, and it would be serious 
perversion of his thought to hold that these directions 
given the publicans, and the soldiers, and the people generally, 

1 Weenle, Beginnings of Christianity (Eng. trans.), p. 36, very properly says that 
this baptism and the accompanying ascetic tendencies of John's teaching (e. g., 
fasting) -were toward Pharisaism. They might indeed conceivably, to judge from 
the tone of the Fourth Gospel, be even regarded as opposed to Christianity proper. 

2 Luke 3: 10-14. 



66 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

concerned the kingdom itself. What life would be in the 
kingdom he never specified. He even refused to assume the 
rSle of Elijah. He was simply a voice calling for prepara- 
tion for the coming King and Judge. ^ As to what would 
happen after the judgment and the coming of the king- 
dom, John utters no word, except a general forecast of punish- 
ment. But he does most emphatically declare that whereas he 
baptized with water, the Coming One would baptize with 
the Holy Spirit. And that Coming One he believed was 
close at hand. 

iLuke 3:15-17; John 1:19-27. 



CHAPTER III 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IX THE TEACHING OF JESUS 

Like his contemporaries, Jesus lived in the messianic 
atmosphere. It would, indeed, be interesting to speculate 
as to just the form in which he would have expressed his 
religious and ethical teachings, had he been a Greek rather 
than a Jew. Possibly like Plato he might have described 
an ideal city-state, or, like the Stoics, have spoken of Nature 
or Logoi. Our sources, however, make such speculation 
futile, and we are thrown back upon the fact that Jesus was 
a Jew, and, as one born under the Law, was inextricably 
and to no small degree genetically united with the thoughts 
and life and hopes for Judaism. That he gave new content 
to his people's language and thought-forms is true, but to 
understand him completely one must first of all understand 
his times. Yet, as one discovers in Jesus something quite 
other than a mere restatement of the better element of 
Pharisaism in general, even more does one discover in his 
entire career the mingled rejection and acceptance of ele- 
ments in current messianism. 



1. From one point of view, Jesus seems utterly to reject 
both the popular and pharisaic messianic hopes, and to lay 
emphasis upon the essentially religious hope of deliverance 
through God's help, of which Jewish messianism was a his- 
torical and ethnic expression.^ He apparently wished to be 
recognized as the founder of a society the members of which, 
whether Jews or gentiles, should resemble him, their Teacher 

1 Weexle, Die Anfdnge unserer Religion^ English translation, Beginnings cf 
Christianity, and Beichgotteshoffyiungen, pp. 23-44, discusses this matter in detail. 

67 



68 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

and type, in their faith in a loving heavenly Father, in their 
love of other men, and in such a willingness to count this 
faith and love the highest good in life as to be ready to 
sacrifice all else rather than them. Where they went, as where 
he was, the kingdom of God was. The group of men thus 
devoted to a relio:ious and moral life — the kino^dom of 
God^^ — ^he seems to have believed would ultimately trans- 
form society into a great brotherhood of love and service 
and trust in God.^ 

Evidently in such a conception Jesus made the kingdom 

1 The two terms rj /3a<nAeta roiv ovpaviov and 17 ^atrtXeta toO 6eov are essentially 
identical. Each may very well be the translation of ^"''53117^ i^rT^DjlG (Heb. 

• I T - : T : - 

D'^'HTiJ niD vtt)' So Dalman, Die Worte Jesu, Vol. I, p. 75, who gives references to 
Berachoth, ii, 2, and to similar expressions in Ab., i, 3; Sanhedrin, vi, 4; ix, 6. The 
Aramaic form is made definite simply because the Aramaic has no other form. It 
should be noticed that the Hebrew is without the article. See also Schuree, JahV' 
buck fur protestantische Theologie, 1876, pp. 171 f. ;• Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish 
Fathers, p. 67. Dalman rejects, the ideas of Baldenspeegee, Selbstbeivusstsein 
Jesu'^, p. 197, and Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 209, that 17 ^acnktia toO 
ovpavov emphasizes a transcendental element in the conception of the messianic king- 
dom. So, too, BoussET, Die Beligion des Judenthums, p. 208. Dalman also holds that 
Jesus chose the expression in order to avoid the use of God's name. Luke and Mark, 
in reporting his words, followed the usage of the LXX, which always uses 17 /3ao-tA.et'a 
Tou deov. The fundamental idea of Jl'^3b'53 he holds to be always " reign " {Regiment, 
Herrschaft,) and not " domain " (Reich) ; so Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, pp. 125 f. ; but 
see Keop, La pensee de Jesus sur le royaume da Dieu, pp. 21 f. Dalman's examples 
certainly establish such a usage among the rabbis, but that it is the only usage is 
contradicted by other literature. And what easier and more inevitable metonymy 
is there than that "dominion" should pass over to represent "those ruled"? 

At all events, it is important to recognize clearly that in the present instance 
we have an example of the fact that the study of a concept is more important than 
the study of a term. The expression 17 ^acriAeta tou fleou does not occur in the Jewish 
literature contemporary with Jesus, unless it be Eth. Enoch, 41 : 1 f . ; 52 : 4 ; Wis. Sol., 
6:5; 10:10; Ps. S'o^, 5:21. Yet, God's relation to the messianic kingdom is univer- 
sally recognized as that of king (e. g., Eth. Enoch, 25 : 3, 5, 7 ; 27 : 3). And, more specifi- 
cally, the kingdom is actually in heaven, according to Test. XII. Pat., Lev. 2:3; 
AsccTision of Isaiah, 4 : 14. In Assumption of Moses the victory of God's kingdom over 
that of Satan is described at length (c/. especially 10:lf. ; cf. Test. XII. Pat., Dan 5). 
Further, see Ps. Sol., 17:4; Tobit, 13:1; Dan. (Song of Three Children) 3:54. 

2 Matt. 12:28; Luke 10: 11; Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43, 47-50; Mark 4: 26-29. JtJlichee, 
Gleichnissreden Jesu, hardly does justice to these parables. To these passages are 
sometimes added Matt. 11:11, 12; (Luke 7:28; 16:16). This social view of the king- 
dom of God has played a considerable, and doubtless helpful, role in recent litera- 
ture. I have myself adopted it in my Social Teaching of Jesus, chap. 3. Such a 
definition, however, is not the proper point of departure for a study of the social 
teaching with which the gospels abound. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 69 

into a family, thereby utterly destroying its formal messianic 
content. It was to be a regenerate humanity, not a conquer- 
ing Jewish nation. God was to be a father and not a king. 
Evidently, too, he has preserved the truth that lay in revolu- 
tionary messianism. If God is to deliver men from misery 
or sin, social results are inevitable. To postpone all effects 
of divine assistance to an indefinite future is to ostracize God 
and to threaten the very foundations of religion. That Jesus 
discountenanced revolution by no means argues against this 
position. He rejected violence as the mistaken idea of the 
Zealots, just as he agreed with them and the prophets in his 
forecast of social regeneration as inextricably united with 
that of the kingdom. . 

2. If this were the only form taken by Jesus' teaching as 
to the kingdom of God, apostolic teaching would be inex- 
plicable. In the sayings that warrant this formulation of 
his doctrine the idea of an eschatological kingdom of God is 
lacking; with the apostles it is exclusively and invariably 
present. If the teaching of the apostles is the outgrowth of 
that of Jesus — a position few would question — the inference 
is unavoidable: Jesus' teaching must also have contained 
and emphasized the eschatological hope. That the apostles 
should have left unnoticed, or even have overlooked, certain 
elements of the teaching of Jesus, and in consequence should 
have made over-prominent other elements, is easy to believe. 
But it is quite inconceivable that they and the early church 
should have so utterly misunderstood his words as always to 
see eschatology where he intended a divinely directed social 
evolution. At least they must have dropped some hint which 
would suggest such a change of opinion. 

We are not left, however, to merely a priori and nega- 
tive considerations. The extant sayings of Jesus show be- 
yond doubt his acceptance of elements of pharisaic eschato- 
logical messianism. 



70 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Even from the side of exegesis, the evidence that the 
kingdom is present is not free from objections. Chief 
among the supports for such a view are the parable of the 
seed growing secretly ^ and the saying of Luke 17 : 20. Any 
fair criticism will recognize the genuineness of these say- 
ings, and any fair exegesis will admit their reference to the 
kingdom. The fact that the phrase with which a parable 
is introduced may be used (as, for example, Matt. 13 : 44-47 ; 
20 : 1 ; cf. also Matt. 18 : 23 ; 22 : 2 ; 25 : 1) to denote a gen- 
eral analogy between certain things true of human experi- 
ence and certain things true of the kingdom, does not 
necessarily argue that it has no more specific reference 
here. In this parable Jesus is evidently speaking of the 
kingdom itself. Yet it can be urged that these two sayings 
do not necessarily argue a present kingdom. In the case 
of the parable of Mark 4 : 26-29, the teaching as to a 
present evolving kingdom is wholly dependent upon a dis- 
regard of vs. 29. In the only other parable in which the 
figure of the harvest is used it is equivalent to the day of 
judgment.^ This parable might very properly be inter- 
preted eschatologically ; that is, as intended to teach the 
necessity of waiting until the coming of the harvest with 
reaping long delayed by the growth of the grain. Thus 
the parable would to all intents and purposes have the same 
teaching as that of Matt. 13 : 24, 29. Similarly in the case 
of the saying of Luke 17 : 20. The context not improbably 
compels it to refer, not to the fact that the kingdom is pres- 
ent, but to the suddenness with which it will appear. One 
will not need to say that the kingdom is here or there; 
it will be instantaneously among people, as the lightning 
instantaneously crosses the entire heavens. Men will not 

1 Mark 4: 26-29. 

2 Matt. 13 : 39. The figure is difEerent in Matt. 9 : 37 and John 4 : 85. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 71 

need to look for it carefully, because it will suddenly be 
among them.' 

Even the most superficial reading of the gospels reveals 
a terminology already made familiar by the study of the 
pharisaic apocalypses. Such terms as crvvTeXeca, TraXcyyevea-La, 
alcov and its cognates, o uto? tov avOpcaTrov^ Koo-fjLo^, 6 eKXeXey- 
fjLevo<;, SaL/JLCov, TrT&j;^©^ dyco^, aayrr^pCa^ avdaTaaL^^ yeevva^ <^a)?, 
ISaaiXela^ Xpto'To^, indicate at once how great is the in- 
debtedness of the gospels to current vocabularies. 

Similarly in the case of specific concepts. A comparison 
of his words with apocalyptic literature will reveal a num- 
ber of striking similarities. It is certainly no mere coinci- 
dence when we find Jesus referring to hell as prepared for 
the devil and his angels ; ^ to wealth as the mammon of un- 
righteousness f to the approaching redemption ;* to the 
thrones prepared for his followers.^ 

When, however, one lays the general scheme of the teach- 
ings of Jesus over against the general scheme of pharisaic 
messianism already presented, the points of similarity are 
strikingly shown. 

1. With him, as with the authors of the apocalypses, 
there are two ages, the present and the coming.** 

1 So also, JtoiCHEE, Gleichnissreden Jesu, Vol. II, p. 136. Weenle, Reichgottes- 
hoffnungeriy considers Matt. 11 : 11, 12, with parallels, as argxiing the presence of the 
kingdom, but his argnments are not convincing. In both sayings the reference 
may be quite as satisfactorily held to be to the eschatological kingdom. 

2 Matt. 25 : 41 ; Eth. Enoch, 54 : 5 ; if this verse is not actually from Jesus, it of 
course loses its weight. 

3 Luke 16 : 9 ; Enoch, 63 : 10. * Luke 21 : 28 ; Enoch, 51 : 2. 

5 Matt. 19:28; Enoch, 108:12. These and similar references will be found given 
with some completeness in introductions to the various apocalypses. In particular 
see Chaeles, Enoch, Jubilees, Assumption of Moses, and Ascension of Isaiah. The 
matter is also treated in Thomson, Books which Influenced Our Lord and His 
Apostles, and more generally by J. Weiss, Predigt Jesu vom Beiche Gottes 2 ; Bousset, 
Predigt Jesu in ihrem Gegensatz zu Judenthum. 

6 There is only one saying unquestionably from Jesus (Mark 10:30), in which 
this distinction is explicitly drawn, and even in this instance the word xaipos is 
used in the first member of the antithesis. The one complete and precise saying at- 
tributed to him (Matt. 12 : 32), is an explanatory rewriting of Mark 3 : 28, in which 
no reference is made to the two ages. Similarly oStos 6 al<av of Luke 20 : 34, is an 



72 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

2. The present age was evil and under the control of its 
prince, Satan. ^ Through his influence sickness^ and temp- 
tations to evil,^ suffering and "possession," had seized upon 
mankind/ Though Jesus had prophetically seen the fall of 
its prince,^ one large part of his mission consisted in de- 
stroying this demoniacal kingdom,^ and bringing its king 
and members to the fires of hell/ Demons were cast out by 
himself and his representatives,® the prince was to be over- 
come,^ and the kingdom of God was to prevail. 

3. With Jesus as with the Pharisees the kingdom of God 
was still future. ^^ Repentance was urged, not as the means 
of bringing in the kingdom, but as a preparation for mem- 
bership in it, when in the Father's good pleasure it should 
appear. The kingdom is thus a gift of God,^Mestined to 
come, not as the product of social evolution, but suddenly, as 
something already prepared before the foundation of the world.^^ 
It is to be inherited and found rather than constructed.^^ 

explanatory expansion of Mark 12:25. In Luke 16:8, however, the contrast is 
drawn between the children of "this age " and " the children of light." This reticence 
of Jesus, which we cannot believe to be accidental, may well be contrasted with the 
usage of Paul. See, e. ^., Rom. 12 : 2 ; 1 Cor. 1:20; 2:6, 8; 3:18; 2 Cor. 4 :4; Gal. 1 : 4. 

iMark 3:24; 4:15 (Luke 8:12) : Luke 22:31; Matt. 4:8, 9; 12:26. In the Johannine 
logia this conception is very clearly expressed. See, for instance, John 12 : 31 ; 14 : 30; 
16:11. 

2 Luke 13: 11 f. 3 Matt. 4:1-11 (Luke 4:1-13). 

*0n the kingdom of Satan as opposed to, and to be conquered by, Jesus see 
IssEL, Eeich Gottes, pp. 38-51; Jacoby, NeutestamentUche Ethik, pp. 55-62; Wendt, 
Teaching of Jesus, Vol. I, pp. 163-68 ; Weiss, Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes^, pp. 90-94. 

5 Luke 10 : 18. 6 Mark 3 :22 ; Matt. 12 : 22-37 ; Luke 11 : 14-23. 

7 Matt. 25 : 41 ; cf. Eth. Enoch 54 : 5 Ascen. Isa., 7 : 12 ; 10 : 12. In case this section be 
treated as a Christian homily, this reference should be omitted. 

8 Luke 9 : 11 f . ; Mark 3:15; Luke 10 : 17. 9 Luke 22 : 31 ; Mark 3 : 23. 

10 ipxe^eai, Matt. 6 : 10 ; Mark 9 : 1 ; Luke 11 : 2 ; 17 : 20 ; e-yvt^eiv. Matt. 3 : 2 ; 4 : 17, etc. ; 
(f>eave:v, Matt. 12 : 28 ; Luke 11 : 20. 

11 Luke 12:32; Matt. 25:1-45; Mark 13:3-37 (Matt. 24:3-42; Luke 21:5-58). It 
makes little difference whether or not this eschatological|address is composite. The 
mass of evidence is too great to have the decision affected. 

12 Matt. 25 : 34. Even if this section of Matthew be no part of the original logia, 
but a little apocalypse incorporated into the gospel, it would be diflBcult not to 
believe that Jesus' words had given color to the belief in the pre-existence of the 
kingdom. Cf. the sentence in the model prayer, "Thy will be done in earth as it is 
in heaven," Matt. 6 : 10. 

1' Matt. 6 : 33 and parallels ; cf. 13 : 44-46. See Lutgeet, Reich Gottes, p. 26 ; Holtz- 
MANN, NeutestamentUche Theologie, p. 202; San i^ ay, art. "Jesus Christ," in Hast- 
ings's Dictionary of the Bible. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 73 

4. The judgment^ also plays an important role in the 
teaching of Jesus. The Son of man was to appear in the 
clouds,^ to accord rewards and punishments.^ Once, also, 
Jesus is reported as speaking of his disciples sitting on 
thrones "judging the twelve tribes of Israel."^ 

5. Similarly the resurrection is distinctly taught by 
Jesus as one element of a complete transformation of the 
individual,^ when the evil age should reach its "consumma- 
tion" and the new messianic age should begin. ^ Indeed, 
the one extra-gospel saying of Jesus dealing with eschato- 
logical matters unmistakably deals with the resurrection.^ 
The coming of Elijah as the precursor of the messianic age, 
which was to play so large a role in rabbinic messianism, is 
also distinctly recognized by Jesus/ 

Thus of the seven fundamental elements of the pharisaic 
messianism, five and, since, as will be argued below, Jesus 
regarded himself as the Messiah, six are an integral and 
distinct part of his teaching. The seventh — the fifth of the 
summary — the restriction of membership in the coming 
kingdom to Jews, was distinctly repudiated by him. This 
divergence from current beliefs was inevitable because of 
his insistence upon the ethical nature of the new citizenship. 
The citizen was to have the character, not the nationality, of 
the king.^ 

1 It is one of the merits of Holtzmann, Lehen Jesu (e. g., pp. 132 f.), that this is 
sufficiently recognized. 

2 Mark 14: 61, 62. 

3 Matt. 13 : 41-43 ; 16 : 27, 28 ; 19 : 27-29 ; Luke 22 : 69. Here belong also the eschato- 
logical discourses of Mark, chap. 13, and parallels, and Matt., chap. 25, as well as the 
parables of Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43, 47-50; Mark 4:26-29. 

* Matt. 19:28; Luke 22: 30. 
Regeneration, Matt. 19:28, which is added to Mark 10:28. 

6 Mark 12 : 18-27 ; Matt. 22 : 23-33 ; Luke 20 : 27-38 ; John 5 : 28, 29 ; 6 : 39, 40, 44, 54. 

'1 Thess. 4:15-17, The force of the statement in the text would not be changed 
if vss. 16, 17 should be shown to be Paul's. 

SThus, Elijah, Mark 9 : 11 (Matt. 17 : 10-12) ; Matt. 11 : 14. 

9 It cannot be denied that there are sayings of Jesus which may be used to show 
that he thought of the kingdom as to be composed of Jews ; e. g., Luke 19:9; Mark 
14:25. C/. Luke 22:16, 30. 



74 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

The transference of the kingdom from the Messiah to the 
Father he does not discuss, but as the supremacy of God in 
general was one of his most fundamental teachings, there 
can be nothing in opposition to such a relegation of the 
Messiah to a secondary position, when once his mission had 
been accomplished.^ 

II 

We find, then, in the messianic teaching of Jesus a two- 
fold representation of the kingdom. On the one side he is 
reported to have spoken of it as present and evolving; on 
the other, he far more commonly spoke of it as future, given 
by God to a waiting people who had prepared themselves 
for its coming by repentance and faith in the loving heav- 
enly Father. The first conception is unique in Jewish and 
early Christian thought. The other is to all intents and 
purposes the same as that of literary eschatological messian- 
ism. The fact that superficially, at least, the one conception 
appears inconsistent with the other has led opposing schools 
of critics to deny the authenticity of each. 

1. On the one hand it is claimed that the apocalyptic 
element is due to reading back apostolic hopes into the gos- 
pel record of the sayings of Jesus. ^ The social and religious, 
rather than the eschatological, elements are therefore treated, 
not only as an exegetical point of departure, but also as a 
critical and exegetical norm. 

In general, such criticism is under the direction of dog- 
matic presuppositions as regards the kingdom of God, due to 
the influence of Kitschl. For those who approach the sub- 
ject from the theological-sociological point of view the term 
is essentially identical with the church — a present evolving 
institution. The kingdom from their point of view is not to 

1 Cf. Matt. 10 : 32 ; Luke 12 : 8. 

2 So, MuiEHEAD, The Eschatology of Jesus; and, cautiously, Stevens, Biblical 
Theology of the New Testament, pp. 37-40 ; Teaching of Jesus, chap. xiv. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 75 

come suddenly, but gradually ; it is in no sense apocalyptic, 
but genuinely social. It is not at all difficult, therefore, to 
understand that Jesus' references to eschatological matters 
should either be accounted for in terms of a developing 
organism or be judged unauthentic. 

While there is the possibility, if not the probability, that 
a certain amount of apostolic thought has been read back 
into the words of Jesus, such a rough and ready treatment 
of a genuinely difficult problem can hardly be considered 
satisfactory. As a matter of fact, it clearly begs the ques- 
tion. If it were true that Jesus thought only of the king- 
dom of God as a present, growing institution, it would be 
necessary to reject as unauthentic all sayings attributed to 
him of a strictly eschatological import ; but this is precisely 
the point at issue, and cannot be assumed. 

Again, there are those who hold that the eschatological 
element was adopted by Jesus to bring himself in touch 
with the thought of his day. It cannot be denied that such 
a position embodies a very important truth, but it is far 
from being a complete answer to the problem. If Jesus 
employed a term which was in common use, and gave to it a 
definition which was different from that which it ordinarily 
possessed, we should certainly expect that in some way he 
would have attempted to disabuse the minds of his disciples 
of false impressions. At least we should expect some 
explicit references to the definition he held to be correct, as 
over against that which others held to be correct. As a 
matter of fact, however, we do not have any such correction 
in our records. If it is argued that it is to be expected that 
the apostles would overlook such teaching, the reply must 
again be made as before that, while there would be no 
improbability in holding that the disciples overlooked many 
of the sayings of Jesus, because of their failure to under- 
stand and so to remember them, it is altogether beyond the 



76 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

range of probability that they should have completely over- 
looked any explicit correction of current ideas as regards the 
kingdom of God. They certainly remembered his criticism 
of the current conception of the Messiah as a son of David. 
With this argument from silence removed, our way is plain. 
To think of Jesus as deliberately using a term with a 
meaning different from what it would have for others is not 
only to raise a question as to his morals, but as to his 
capacity as a teacher. 

There remains one other critical hypothesis for the 
removal of at least a large element in the eschatological 
teaching of Jesus. It is in effect that Matt. 25:31-46 is an 
apocalypse of early Christian origin which has been incor- 
porated into the gospels, and that, similarly, the eschato- 
logical elements of Mark 13 and parallels^ did not come 
from Jesus, but are a "little apocalypse" that have been 
inserted in his teaching. But even if this, by no means 
improbable, hypothesis be granted, it by no means follows^ 
that the eschatological element in the teaching of Jesus 
vanishes. There are still left on practically indisputable 
critical grounds such eschatological sayings as those of 
Matt. 16:27f.; 26:29, 64; 10:23; 19:28f. 

2. Diametrically opposite to this attempt to eliminate the 
eschatological elements from the teaching of Jesus is the 
more or less pronounced tendency on the part of some 
scholars to deny that Jesus himself spoke of the kingdom of 
God in any other than an eschatological sense, and, conse- 
quently, to deny the authenticity of the passages which 
involve any idea of a present kingdom.^ The basis of such 

1 See Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu, Vol. I, pp. 9f. ; Schmiedel, art. "Gospels," Ency- 
clopcedia Biblica, § 124. The " little apocalypse " here imbedded in the gospel 
narrative is held to have been interwoven in authentic non-eschatological sayings 
of Jesus concerning the fall of Jerusalem. This "little apocalypse" may be 
recovered by uniting the following verses of Mark : 13 : 7-9a, 14-20, 24-27, 30. 

2 Cf. Schmiedel, in article cited, §§145 f. 

3 See J. Weiss, Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes"^; Schmoller, Die Lehre vom 
Eeiche Gottes; Schnedeemann, Reich Gottes; Issel, Reich Gottes; Weenle, i>^■6 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 77 

a denial is not exegetical, but critical. Such sayings as in 
any clear way represent the kingdom as present are declared 
to be due to an introduction into the thought of Jesus of the 
apostolic conception of the church as a kingdom of Christ 
distinct from the kingdom of God. The basis, however, of 
such an argument is by no means firm. It cannot be denied 
that Paul conceived of a time when the Christ would transfer 
the kingdom to the Father,^ but it is a mistake to conceive 
of this expectation as referring to the church. The king- 
dom to which the apostle refers is evidently that to be 
inaugurated at the coming of Christ, and is truly as eschato- 
logical at its inception as it is at its completion.^ In the 
apostolic thought the church is not conceived of as the king- 
dom, but as the body^ of Christ, and Christians are distinctly 
said to have their citizenship in heaven.* To say, with J. 
Weiss,^ that the idea of a present kingdom of Christ, as dis- 
tinct from the coming kingdom of God, has here been read 
back into Jesus' teaching by primitive Christianity, is pre- 
cisely to reverse the facts at our disposal. Early Chris- 
tianity, as represented both by the apostles and the Fathers, 
thought of the kingdom of Christ and of the kingdom of 
God as eschatological. The use of 1 Cor. 15: 24ff. to prove 
the contrary is unfortunate in the light of 1 Cor. 15: 22, 23. 
That the apostles believed that the Christ would some day 
deliver over the kingdom to the Father is undeniable, but 
this is very different from saying that his kingdom is 
present. There is no one to be mentioned to whom the idea 
of a present kingdom can be attributed except Jesus himself.^ 

Anfdnge unserer Religion; Cone, Rich and Poor in the New Testament; Balden- 
SPEEGEE, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu; Bousset, Die Predigt Jesu in ihrem Gegensatz 
zu Judenthum. See, however, LChe, "Das Bild Jesu bei den Eschatologen " in 
Protestantische Monatshefte, Vol. VII, pp. 64-78; Haupt, Die eschatologischen 
Aussagen Jesu. 

U Cor. 15:24,25. 21 Cor. 15: 23. 3 Eph. 1 : 23 ; 5 :30 ; 1 Cor. 12 : 12-27. 

1 Phil. 3 : 20. 5 Predlgt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes'^, p. 41. 

6 I wish to acknowledge assistance received at this point from a doctor's thesis 
by H. M. Heeeick, The Kingdom of God in the Patristic Literature. 



78 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Apart from this consideration, there is no critical argu- 
ment which would lead one to doubt the authenticity of all 
the eschatological or all the religio-sociological passages, 
and the problem is left precisely where a fair exegesis 
leaves it : How may we reconcile the two contents given by 
Jesus to the term, "kingdom of God" ? 

Ill 

Before attempting to solve this problem methodically, 
it may be well to consider a rather ingenious attempt at 
ruling it out of court by a sort of exegetical tour de force. 
This is the view that accepts the apocalyptical sayings 
attributed to Jesus as genuine, but holds them to be simply 
figurative expressions of judgment and of glory. The basis 
for such an argument lies in the admitted fact that the 
coming of the Son of man in Enoch has obviously to do 
with judgment. Apocalyptic being considered as a purely 
literary form without content, all references which Jesus 
makes to such a coming are therefore treated as figurative 
prophecies of the judgment which is to be inflicted upon 
the Jewish nation. Such a view would see, for example, in 
the destruction of Jerusalem a fulfilment of the words of 
Jesus to the high-priest: "Ye shall see the Son of man 
coming in the clouds of heaven."^ Indeed, the view may 
even be carried further^ and involve an indefinite number of 
comings of the Son of man, in the sense that every great 
crisis in which suffering results from national or individual 
wrongdoing may be said to be a judgment of God, and so a 
coming of the Son of man. 

The difficulty with such an interpretation lies not so 
much in the assertion that the coming of the Son of man 
was synonymous with judgment, as in the fact that it is a 
philosophical generalization which by no means is to be 

1 Mark 14:62. 

2 BuETON AND Mathews, Constructive Studies in the Life of Christ, p. 240. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 79 

found in the thought of Jesus. With him, as with the 
apocalyptic writers, there was to be but one coming of the 
Judge. To reduce the apocalyptic terminology to a mere 
figure of speech is to destroy, not merely a literary form, 
but a certain definite content as well. That this view has 
elements of truth in it cannot be denied, but as a complete 
explanation of the situation it raises more difficulties than 
it explains. 

Nor can it be satisfactorily argued that the eschato- 
logical kingdom represents a completed kingdom, the begin- 
nings of which are to be seen in Jesus and the community 
of disciples about him. It cannot be denied that such a 
view has great attractiveness. Certain passages, to which 
references have already been made, like the parable of the 
seed growing secretly, and of the leaven, might be argued 
in favor of such a position. The difficulty is, however, that 
Jesus himself never distinctly makes the combination. 
Nothing would have been easier for him than to have em- 
bodied such a view in his teaching. It is, of course, possible 
to think of a series of comings of the Son of man in judg- 
ment ; but even thus it is exceedingly difficult to think of the 
kingdom in its eschatological shape as in any way growing 
out of the kingdom in the social sense. Whether or not 
Jesus actually used the term, the establishment of the new 
age was really a iraXi'y^eveala — a new birth. ^ 

The first step toward a proper reconciliation of the two 
usages of the term, must be a determination as to which 
of the two is really fundamental. The difficulty in making 
the idea of a present kingdon fundamental has already been 
seen to be insuperable, because of the difficulty of synthe- 
sizing with it the distinctly eschatological elements which 
are so prominent in the teaching of Jesus. If these elements 
had been but incidental, or if Jesus had referred to them in 

1 In the Syriac version of Matt. 19: 28, TraAtyyeveo-ta is translated " in the age new." 



80 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the way of accommodation, or if they had been but literary 
figures, the synthesis would be comparatively easy. The 
eschatological pictures of the kingdom could then be treated 
as a poetic representation of the completion of the evolving 
present kingdom. Such a hypothesis is untenable, not alone 
on the grounds already stated above, but because it involves 
a reversal of true exegetical method. At the very best the 
passages which can be quoted in favor of the existing present 
kingdom are exceedingly few, while those which more natur- 
ally must be interpreted to refer to the future kingdom are 
all but constant. But the objection rests not alone on the 
comparison of numbers. If a true exegetical method de- 
mands anything, it is that the interpreter come to a given 
thought with the stream of historical development* The 
burden of proof lies heavily upon him who gives a meaning 
to historical concepts which is contrary to the course of such 
development. Such burden of proof can be sustained in 
the case of certain elements of the messianic hope as taught 
by Jesus, notably those which concerned the office and the 
work of Christ himself ; but, as has already appeared, the 
entire scheme of his teaching is so thoroughly like that 
which it has been shown he must have inherited, as to render 
the substitution of new definitions for those inherited im- 
probable in the highest degree. The historico-grammatical 
process, if it is worth anything, demands that of the two 
uses of the term "kingdom" the eschatological be chosen as 
fundamental. 

The practical question is therefore reversed. It is no 
longer one of adjusting the eschatological teachings of Jesus 
to his religio-sociological, but that of adjusting his refer- 
ences to a present kingdom to his entire eschatological 
scheme. Such an accommodation is by no means difficult 
when once it is undertaken. 

The words of Jesus which apparently describe the pres- 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 81 

ent kingdom refer (1) to those who were to be received into 
the kingdom when it appeared, and (2) to the triumphs he 
and his followers were winning over Satan and his kingdom. 

1. The kingdom was among those to whom he spoke, in 
the sense that there were men present who were to enter it 
when it appeared. This simple explanation has very much 
in its favor. To begin with, it is precisely the conception 
of the relation of the individual believer to the kingdom 
held by the early church. Then, further, it necessitates no 
redefinition of the term "kingdom of God," but simply a 
metaphorical use of the term to refer to those who were to 
be its subjects. To attempt to give to the words of Jesus 
any double definition seems very hazardous ; to think of him 
as at one time speaking of the kingdom as sociological, and 
at another as apocalyptic-eschatological, is to raise the sus- 
picion that he himself had no clear idea of the term. To say 
that he uses the term with a constant sense of the new king- 
dom which was to be established by God in the new age, but 
also in a figurative way to refer to the people who are actually 
to belong to it, is to allow him no more than a conventional 
freedom in his references to and use of an inherited concept. 

From this point of view it is easy to see how Jesus could 
speak of the immediate group of his disciples as growing in 
the world like leaven in the meal, or like the mustard seed. 
The small beginnings were, indeed, to have a great ending, 
numerically as well as in dignity. 

2. Jesus could speak of the kingdom as present in the 
sense that there already was to be seen an expression of that 
divine power and authority which later would establish the 
complete overthrow of Satan's kingdom. In the person of 
himself and his disciples that struggle between the two 
kingdoms which has already been noted as a part of his 
general thought was in progress. The first intimations of 
the final triumph were already seen. The disciples were 



82 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

given authority to, and are reported to have, cast out 
demons/ Jesus himself by the finger of God cast them out, 
and was himself the strong man who was to bind and spoil 
his opponent. When the kingdom had in a precise sense 
come, Satan would be completely vanquished. In the mean- 
time Jesus, in the full assurance of that victory, could speak 
of having seen him fall from heaven.^ How easy it was for 
the apostolic age to interpret the historical work of Jesus as 
that of one who introduced, not the kingdom, but the mes- 
sianic last days, will appear in our subsequent discussion. 

None of these considerations, however, affect the con- 
clusions which one must draw concerning the primary and 
the derived messianic conception of Jesus. Any strict defi- 
nition of the kingdom of God as used by Jesus must be 
eschatological.^ With Jesus as with his contemporaries the 
kingdom was yet to come. Its appearance would be the 
result of no social evolution, but sudden, as the gift of God; 
men could not hasten its coming ; they could only prepare 
for membership in it. 

IV 
The discussion thus far may now be summarized: 
Formally considered, the kingdom of God in the estima- 
tion of Jesus was that community over whom God was to 
rule, whose members were like God in character and in that 
they were not possessed of physical bodies. When God saw 
fit, it was to be miraculously triumphant over the Satanic 
kingdom and established upon the earth by the Christ. Those 
who had prepared to enter it by living a life of love, might 
be conceived of proleptically as the kingdom, so certain were 

1 Mark 3: 15; Luke 10:17. 

2 Luke 10:18. It is the merit of Weenle (Reichgotteshoffnungen) that he has 
seen distinctly the significance of this latter point. He is less happy in his adoption 
of the distinction drawn by J. Weiss between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom 
of God. See also his chapters iv and vi in The Beginnings of Christianity. 

3 See, for similar statement, Titius, Neutestamentliche Lehre von Seligkeit; 
Vol. I, p. 5. 



Kingdom of God in Teaching of Jesus 83 

they to enjoy its unmeasured happiness. It was Jesus' duty, 
both by teaching and example, to prepare men to enter and 
to prepare others to enter it when he, the Christ, should 
come to establish it. 

Yet this is by no means the end of the matter. It would 
be a grievous mistake to think that Jesus appropriated with- 
out discrimination the beliefs current among his people. He 
was far too original a thinker not to see limitations in the 
religious world whose life he shared. While the kingdom 
of God as he conceived it resembled the kingdom of God as 
the Pharisee conceived it, there were radical differences in 
the two conceptions. Just what these differences were can 
be best considered, however, in connection, not with abstract 
teaching, but with the formulation of his own self- 
consciousness. 



CHAPTER IV 

JESUS' CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF AS MESSIAH 

The question as to how Jesus regarded his own relations 
to the kingdom he foretold is one of first importance, both 
from the point of view of Christology and from that of con- 
structive theology. Such a question has but two possible 
answers ; either he regarded himself as the Christ, or he did 
not so regard himself. 

Which of these two alternatives is to be chosen will 
appear only after a detailed examination of the material of 
the gospels. 



The chief argument against messianic self-consciousness 
in Jesus is critical, and amounts to the complete denial of 
the historical value of the early chapters of the Fourth 
Gospel and the assertion that such passages in the synoptic 
gospels as imply messianic self-estimate on the part of 
Jesus are either misinterpretations or unauthentic. Some- 
times, it is true, such criticism does not lead to a denial 
that Jesus considered himself to be the Messiah. As in the 
case of Wrede,^ the gospel material may be held to show 
that Jesus did believe himself to be the Christ, but that he 
kept it a secret except from his most intimate friends. 
From such a point of view, all sayings as appear to give 
publicity to this belief are untrustworthy. The self-desig- 
nations which have commonly been held to imply the mes- 
sianic character on the part of Jesus are now held by an 
increasing number of scholars to be either mistranslations of 

iDas Messiasgeheimniss Jesu. 

84 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 85 

some original Aramaic expression, or interpolating additions 
of the evangelists or editor of the gospel.^ 

So complicated and discordant is this criticism, and so 
subjective are the criteria which it employs, that detailed 
discussion is here impracticable. Yet it is not difficult to 
see that, wholly apart from any philosophical bias against 
the miraculous, such criticism makes three untenable pre- 
suppositions. 

In the first place, it assumes that a confession of belief in 
Jesus as the Christ involved also the belief that Jesus was 
at the time of the confession engaged in recognizable mes- 
sianic work. 

In the second place it assumes that Jesus could not have 
considered himseK the Messiah unless the kingdom had 
actually come. 

In the third place it assumes that any similarity between 
the messianic teaching of Jesus and the messianic belief of 
the apostolic church is due to a reading back of such apostolic 
faith into the sayings of Jesus. 

To all three presuppositions it may be replied, in gen- 
eral, that they embody the precise matter under investiga- 
tion and cannot be used as critical criteria. That there are 
independent criteria at our disposal is undeniable, and the 
problem before the investigator must be answered by em- 
ploying them. 

But this general consideration is by no means the end of 
the matter. Each of the presuppositions is open to par- 
ticular objections. 

The assumption that Jesus must needs be doing recog- 
nizable messianic work in order to be accepted as the 
Messiah is fundamentally incorrect. The entire church of 

iSee Caey, The Synoptic Gospels, pp. 360 f.; Maetixeau, Seat of Authority in 
Eeligion, pp. 355 f . ; Meinhold, Jesus mid das Alte Testament, pp. 98 f . ; Havet, 
Le Christianisme et ses origines, Vol. TV, pp. 15 f. ; Kahlee, Der sogenannte historische 
Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christus ; Schmidt, art. "Son of Man" in 
Encyclopcedia Bihlica. 



86 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the New Testament times had no difficulty in believing the 
precise opposite. To its members Jesus was the Christ, but 
a Christ who in their own time had not established his king- 
dom. Nor was this position wholly precluded by eschato- 
logical messianism as it existed among the Pharisees. While, 
as has already appeared, it is true that the current expecta- 
tion knew nothing of a suffering and dying Christ, it is 
quite as true that it included a period of messianic activity 
in which the Christ should not have completed his work. 
It will be recalled that his reign was held to include, if not 
to constitute, a period of struggle. It is obvious that at 
some point within this period the Christ would not have 
attained his real messianic supremacy. Such a considera- 
tion as this does not prove that one could be the Christ who 
was not actually engaged .in messianic work, but it does 
suggest caution as to holding that, in order to be the Christ, 
one must be recognized as doing the full, or even recog- 
nizable, messianic work. That which constituted a person- 
ality messianic was not so much his deeds as the presence 
in his life of the spirit of God. Accordingly, if, instead of 
assuming that messianic quality and recognizable messianic 
activity are inseparable, one admits possible periods in a 
progressive messianic activity, there is no difficulty in hold- 
ing that, in case the evidence of the synoptic gospels warrant 
the view, Jesus might both be and be considered the Christ. 
His activity, before he was seen to be a messianic king, may be 
conceived of as falling into two periods — the preparatory or 
prophetic and the eschatologically messianic. Finally, to hold 
that all similarities between the teaching of Jesus and that 
of the apostles originate in the latter is the most arrant sub- 
jectivism. Why might they not have originated with Jesus 
and have been reproduced in the apostolic teaching? Or, 
as is indeed the case, why might they not have originated 
in Judaism and have been reproduced by both Jesus and 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 87 

his disciples? There may very well be certain cases in 
which the evangelical tradition has been somewhat reworked 
by the evangelists or by those who subsequently edited 
their writings, but such reworkings and interpretations and 
substitutions of verbal equivalents can generally be detected 
and controlled by critical methods that are independent of 
the result they seek to establish. The simple fact is that 
the method by which it is sought to prove that Jesus did 
not hold himself to be the Christ proves too much. It 
destroys the entire historicity of the gospel narrative. How, 
for instance, is one to deny the genuineness of Jesus' reply 
to the high-priest^ and hold to any part of Mark as histori- 
cal data? But if such a saying as this is admitted, it is 
sheer waste of time to argue that Jesus did not, at least in 
the latter part of his career, think of himself as the Christ. 
As might be expected, these presuppositions find their 
chief critical result in the rejection of the early sections of 
the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is there represented as having 
been pointed out by John the Baptist and accepted by cer- 
tain disciples as Christ at the very beginning of his ministry. 
The precise content of the testimony of the Baptist to Jesus 
will be considered later; at present it is enough to consider 
the broader aspects of the matter. It cannot be denied that 
there is, superficially at least, some discrepancy between the 
early acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah recorded by the 
Fourth Gospel, and the silence of the synoptists as to the 
faith on the part of the disciples before the scene at Csesarea 
Philippi. This discrepancy, however, loses much, if not all, 
of its force when one recalls that neither in the Fourth 
Gospel nor in the synoptics is messianic faith in Jesus any- 
thing more than an expectation that he would do messianic 
work in the future. In neither is there any clear acceptance 
of him as Christ on the basis of qualifying messianic acts. 

1 Mark 14: 61, 62. 



88 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

From the point of view of the early church, there is no 
a priori reason why snch a conviction might not have come 
early as well as late in Jesus' ministry, provided only some- 
one had the insight to perceive the real character of Jesus. 
The question, therefore, becomes simply a matter of evi- 
dence to be decided by the use of the synoptic gospels as 
controlling data. If they do not make it impossible to hold 
that the disciples could have accepted Jesus as the future 
Christ during the lifetime of John the Baptist, we may 
safely estimate and use the Johannine material. The one 
assumption in which this position may involve the invest! 
gator concerns the prophetic insight of John the Baptist. 
If Jesus were pointed out by him as Christ before he had 
presented, so to speak, his messianic credentials, John cer- 
tainly had powers of insight beyond the ordinary. But as 
to the possibility of John's believing that Jesus was the 
Christ and so describing him, it is hard to find a priori 
objections. No serious scholar would deny some plus ele- 
ment in the prophetic self -consciousness. 

It is the investigator's first duty to discover in the synoptic 
sources how distinct was the messianic consciousness in Jesus 
himself throughout his public ministry ; in short, to deter- 
mine whether Jesus actually did consider himself the Messiah. 

II 

In any constructive statement as to the self -consciousness 
of Jesus the point of departure must be his baptism rather 
than his birth. It is true, as will appear in this discussion 
sooner or later, that any estimate of his personality arrives 
at ontological conclusions. It is also doubtless true that for 
minds of a Greek tendency statements concerning origins are 
more intelligible than those which deal with the " coming 
of the Spirit" upon a person. At the same time outside 
of the infancy sections, the New Testament writers never 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 89 

approach Jesus through his miraculous conception.^ Mark 
expressly states^ that the beginning of the gospel was the 
work of John, and implies that a new consciousness came 
to Jesus at the baptism.^ 

But was this new consciousness genuinely messianic? 
Might it not have been simply prophetic ? It is impossible 
so to interpret the data. A messianic content is intended by 
the synoptic writers, and is reaffirmed by the Fourth Gospel* 
and the early church.^ The recognition on their part of the 
inseparable connection between the baptism of the believer 
and his reception of the Holy Spirit is always taken as 
proof of a messianic relation. If it be replied that such 
experience of the Christian was wholly subjective, it can 
be said that the subjective character of Jesus' experience 
after baptism is now seldom doubted even by scholars not 
subject to suspicion of extreme rationalism.*^ The opened 

1 The first dogmatic use made of the infancy sections in Matthew and Luke is 
that of Ignatius, ^-p/u, 7: 21; 18:2; 19:1; 20:2; Smyr.,1; Magn., 11. Cf. Hoben, 
The Virgin Birth in " Historical and Literature Studies," etc. ; also American Journal 
of Theologij, Vol. VI (1902), pp. 481-83. 

2 Mark 1:1. 

3 The phrase " messianic self-consciousness 'Vis at best an unhappy one, and is 
without strictly scientific definition. In the interest of precision, it would be well 
if it could be abandoned. At the same time, it has acquired a general usage and is 
convenient for expressing that which otherwise would require considerable circum- 
locution. In using the term, I do not wish to be understood as implying that Jesus 
had two origins of consciousness, the one that of the ordinary Jew, and the other 
that of the Christ. Any such duality is foreign to the entire New Testament concep- 
tion. By " messianic self-consciousness " is meant simply that recognition of his own 
personality as possessed of certain powers and characteristics to which he gave 
a messianic value. On the messianic self-consciousness see Baldenspeegee, Das 
Selbstbewusstsein Jesu^; Schmidt, "Bildung und Gehalt des messianischen Be- 
wusstseins Jesu," Studien und Kritiken, 1889, pp. 423-507; Holsten, " Zur Ent- 
stehung und Entwicklung des Messiasbewusstseins in Jesus," Zeitschrift fiir 
wissenschaftUche T/ieoZog'ie, 1891, pp. 385-449; BovoN, Theologie du Nouveau Testa- 
ment"^, Vol. I, pp. 262-90; Holtzmann, Das Leben Jesu, chaps. 6, 7; Schmidt, "Son of 
Man," in Encyclopcedia Biblica; Weede, Das Messiasgeheimniss Jesu; Schwaetz- 
KOPFF, The Prophecies of Jesus Christ concerning His Death and Resurrection: 
Baeth, Die Hauptprobleme des Lehens Jesu, pp. 229-84. 

4 John 1 : 30-34. 5 Acts 10 : 38. 

6 See, for instance, Beuce, Expositor''s Greek]Testament, on Matt. 3 : 16, 17 ; Luke 
3:22; Sanday, art. "Jesus Christ," in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible; j! 
Weiss, Life of Jesus Christ, Vol. I, p. 324. See also Keim, Jesus of Nazara, Vol. II 
p. 286; Beyschlag, Leben Jesu, Vol. II, p. 112. 



90 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

heavens must certainly be figurative. The dove is a rab- 
binic analogy of the Holy Spirit.^ The Bath Qol, " the 
daughter of the voice" (of Jehovah), is frequently met with 
in rabbinic literature to denote a divine revelation to 
some teacher in the form of an oracular sentence.^ 

Described thus in terms almost conventional among 
the rabbis to express the idea of divine revelation, the 
tendency seen in Luke to describe the baptism in more 
concrete terms cannot for a moment affect the general 
conclusions. It is a picture of the inner experience of 
Jesus. Jesus himself must have been the source of the 
story, at least in its fundamental elements. That is to say, 
he must either have used the figures vs^hich we find in the 
synoptic gospels, or have simply stated that at his baptism 
he became aware of his messianic office. His subsequent 
references to himself at Nazareth and in his reply to the 
question of John the Baptist are fully in accord with this 
view. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him.^ The sin of 
misinterpreting his beneficent work of conquering Satan 
lay, not in the attack upon himself, but in that upon the 
Holy Spirit who was working through him/ 

1 Chag., 15a,* but see Edeesheim, Life and Times of Jesics the Messiah^ Vol. I, 
p. 287. 

2 See Webee, Jiidische Theologie '-, pp. 190-95, especially pp. 194, 195 The origin 
of this belief is held by Bousset, Die Religion des Judenthums, p. 319, n. 3, to have 
lain in Jubilees, 17 : 15 ; Eth. Enoch, 65 : 4 ; Baruch, 13 : 1 ; 22 : 1 ; 4 Esdras, 6 : 13 f . That the 
term was in use in the time of Jesus is implied by its appearance in the Mishnah, 
Yefe., xvi, 6; Abhoth,Yi,2. Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 204, 205, and art. "Bath 
Kol" in PEE., Vol. 113, p. 443, distinguishes between two species of such "voices" 
the one directly from God (as in the case of Jesus), and the other some chance 
expression of a man which seemed^ to express oracular quality. See, further, 
W^uxscHE, Neue Beitrage, pp. 22, 23; Hambuegee, Realencyclopddie, and Jeioish 
Cyclopcedia, art. " Bath Qol." In our synoptic sources the later accounts of 
Matthew, and especially of Luke, show a decided tendency to materialize the account 
of Mark. 

•^ Luke 4 : 18 ; cf. Luke 7 : 22, 23 ; see also Mark 1 : 12 ; Matt. 4 : 1 ; Luke 4 : 1, 14. 

iMark3:29, 30; Matt. 12 : 28-32 ; Luke 12: 10. The statement of the text is not 
affected by a rejection of the non-Markan form of the saying of Jesus as a reworking 
of the Markan material. It is interesting to note, in this connection, such an expres- 
sion as Luke 10: 21. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 91 

It is possible, however, that it may still be insisted that 
Jesus' experience of the Spirit does not differ fundamentally 
from the experience of the prophet, and that it would con- 
sequently be incorrect to speak of it as necessarily implying 
a messianic consciousness. Such a hypothesis is not abso- 
lutely impossible, but, in the light of the data at our dis- 
posal, it must be pronounced highly improbable. As has 
already been pointed out, the early church evidently con- 
ceived of this experience as one of messianic rather than 
merely prophetic importance.^ Further than this, as ap- 
pears especially clear in the original account in Mark,^ the 
spiritual experience of Jesus at the baptism was the basis 
of what is commonly known as the temptation. In this 
latter experience, as described by Matthew,^ and Luke/ 
Jesus is not confronted with any doubt as to a possible 
deception in the baptismal experience, or as to the reality 
of his new self-consciousness, but rather with the possi- 
bility of misusing miraculous powers known to be his 
through that experience. It is exceedingly difficult to be- 
lieve that such a struggle resulted from anything else than 
a consciousness of messianic importance. The critic who de- 
nies the historicity of the account may of course avoid such 
a conclusion, but the burden of proof lies upon him in 
making such a denial. 

Throughout Jesus' life his attitude is always that of one 
superior to the prophet. The force of this statement can 
be broken only by a denial of the historicity of the pas- 
sages to which appeal is made. Thus he clearly regards 
himself as greater than Jonah, Solomon,^ his own dis- 

1 This statement would perhaps gain still further strength if Dalman, Words of 
Jesus, pp. 276-80, be right in insisting that " the evangelists give an account of the 
voice, not on account of any importance which the reception of such a divine voice 
might possibly have for Jesus, but in the sense of impressive testimonies that 
Jesus really was what his disciples before the world proclaimed him to be." 

21:9-13. 3 4:1-11. * 4: 1-13. 

5 Matt. 12 : 41, 42 ; Luke 11 : 31, 32. 



92 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

ciples,^ and Satan himself." If we add to this the further 
consideration of his frequent recurrence to his intimacy 
with God, the conclusion as to his sense of superiority to the 
prophetic office is much strengthened.^ But the strongest 
argument for the messianic self-estimate of Jesus is cumula- 
tive, and to be stated best by a careful consideration and 
combination of all the other facts at our disposal. To this 
we now pass. 

The beginning of the public career of Jesus is said by all 
the synoptists to have followed the temptation. He came 
into Galilee announcing that the kingdom of heaven was 
close at hand, and calling upon his fellow countrymen to 
believe the good news.* Further than this we know nothing 
of his teaching. His own relation to his message must be 
determined by an appeal to the experiences of the baptism 
and temptation, as well as to his conception of the kingdom 
he announced. In no case, however, are there good grounds 
for holding that he regarded himself as "founding" the 
kingdom in the ordinary sense of the word. So far as his 
mere summons is concerned, it implies messianic character 
in his case no more than in the case of John. Its real 
messianic significance can be established only by establish- 
ing the messianic character of Jesus himself. 

Yet this argument from silence must not be pushed too 
far. At the time he called the four fishermen, he must have 

1 Matt. 10 : 24, 25 ; Luke 6 : 40 ; Matt. 23 : 10. These passages are very liable to 
critical objections, but that Jesus did consider himself the superior to his disciples 
will not be questioned. In the Fourth Gospel this superiority is developed at some 
length. See, for instance, John 13: 12-16. 

2 Mark 3 : 23-27, and parallels ; Matt. 12 : 28. As to the kingdom of Satan cf. 
Assump. Aloses, 10 : 1. 

3 The reference here is not to the Johannine addresses, although it would be 
rash to deny absolutely their historical worth, but to the sayings of Matt. 11 : 27, and 
Luke 10: 22. Whatever critical position one may take as to the parallel saying of 
the last half of the verse, that of the first half is clearly more than the expression of 
a simple prophetic ecstasy akin to it though it may be ; cf. Matt. 10: 40. It is prob- 
able that when the structure of the Fourth Gospel is better understood, such say- 
ings as those of John 6 : 46, and 13 : 20 will be seen to be echoes of these synoptic 
logia= 

4 Mark 1 : 14-2C. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 93 

been already known in some exceptional capacity. It is cer- 
tainly not to be supposed that men would have abandoned 
their occupations if an utterly unknown and irresponsible 
person had promised to make them fishers of men. The 
only satisfactory explanation of the action of the two sets of 
Galilean brothers lies in the assumption that they had 
known Jesus prior to their summons, and that they had 
accepted him in some way as related to the messianic future. 
It is, of course, true that the synoptic material in itself does 
not warrant the inference that they accepted Jesus as one 
who was superior to John the Baptist. Without the Johan- 
nine material we should never have suspected that they had 
been associated with the Baptist,^ and their acceptance of 
Jesus as master at the beginning of his Galilean ministry 
would in itself compel us to hold only that they considered 
him the successor of John the Baptist, who, according to 
the synoptic source, had just been arrested and imprisoned.^ 
Yet, after all such due allowance is made, there is nothing 
here contradictory of the Johannine story. Nor is there 
anything intrinsically improbable in the statement of the 
Fourth Gospel that some disciples of John should have 
abandoned him and followed Jesus. And if so, why should 
they have chosen Jesus, had it not been that John had in 
some way recognized him as more than an ordinary disciple ? 
If one be ready to admit that the Fourth Gospel correctly 
represents this change of discipleship as involving a faith in 
the messianic future of Jesus on the part of both John and 

1 Cf. the comparison between the Twelve and the disciples of John ; Luke 11 : 1 ; 
Mark 2:18. 

2See~also the highly subjective criticism of Briggs, Neio Light on the Life of 
Jesus^ chaps. 1, 2. If it were possible to adopt the general thesis of this latest tour 
de force of harmonization, and bring in the Samaritan visit with its express 
messianic claims (John 4 :4-43), after John 11 : 54 ; Mark 10 : 1, and Luke 13 :22, 
many difficulties would certainly be avoided. But it is hard to see the justification 
for such a readjustment. The order in Luke when compared with that in Mark 
shows a rearrangement for the sake of explaining the basis for the obedience of the 
force to the call of Jesus. 



94: The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

some of his disciples, the explanation of the readiness with 
which the four subsequently left their employment is readily 
seen. They believed that Jesus was now about to take up 
the work that such a future involved, but which he had 
postponed when there was danger that the preparatory steps 
might interfere with the similar work of John.^ That such 
a view involves difficulties cannot be denied, but it is hardly 
to be rejected as improbable simply because it treats the 
Johannine account with respect. The chief business of a 
historian is to utilize material that is not absolutely irrecon- 
cilable. And most unprejudiced students will admit that, 
in the light of the baptism and temptation of Jesus, the 
account of the Fourth Gospel gives a very satisfactory 
explanation for the sudden abandonment of their business 
interests by James and John, Peter and Andrew. 

From any difficulty herein involved it would, however, be 
altogether unjustifiable to argue that Jesus did not consider 
himself as anything more than a second John. His sense of 
his superiority, with its awful responsibilities was already 
keen. He kept it a secret from the masses, perhaps from 
many of his disciples,^ but — if such a hypothesis be not 
judged too speculative — not from those who were peculiarly 
sensitive to mental suggestion, the so-called demoniacs.^ 
For some reason these unfortunate persons were accustomed 
to address Jesus in messianic terms. Is it too much to 
suppose that in some mysterious way they caught a sugges- 
tion from his own conviction as to himself ? 

1 John 4 : 1-3. 

2 For an elaborate treatment of this position see Weede, Das Messiasgeheimniss 
Jesu. 

3 Mark 1 : 24 ; cf. Mark 3 : 11 ; 5:7, and parallels. The tendency among interpreters 
t:> regard these instances of "casting out demons" as the cure of persons afflicted 
with peculiar forms of nervous diseases is the warrant for the conjecture in the text. 
The critical basis for their cures is as good as for any part of the gospel narrative, 
The hypothesis I suggest amounts to this : these persons responded to the thought 
and will of Jesus as the clairvoyant to his enquirer. There is no larger difficalty 
here than is recognized in hypnotism and allied phenomena. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 95 



However ^ye may estimate the worth of this speculation, 
it is clear that it is only from the point of view of a concep- 
tion of himself as Christ that one grasps the full significance 
of the words of Jesus concerning his conquest of Satan to 
which reference has already been made.^ Perplexing as 
such sayings are to the modern man, they are at once intel- 
ligible from the point of view of messianism. Such a con- 
quest argued the beginning of the victory of the kingdom 
of God. But the Christ and the Christ alone would be 
strong enough to overcome the kingdom of evil that over- 
shadowed and embittered the pre-messianic age. 

The interpreter stands, however, on surer grounds when 
dealing with the answer given by Jesus to the query of 
John the Baptist as to whether he was the Coming One. It 
has been held that this answer does not involve any mes- 
sianic claim. Such a position is certainly not that of the 
evangelists or of anyone who is not determined to give every 
saying of Jesus a non-messianic force. Just as certainly it 
is not of Jesus. Unless the reply be an affirmation of his 
messiahship, the entire anecdote is meaningless. John 
asked him point blank whether he were the "Coming One" 
— the Christ. Jesus must have known that he either was 
or was not such a Personage. If he thought he was not the 
Christ, it would have been only elementary honesty to have 
said so. But he does not make any such declaration. On 
the contrary, he declared that he was fulfilling a text of 
scripture which John must have recognized as messianic.^ 
And, what is more, if he had not intended John to under- 
stand his reply as an affirmation of his messiahship, he would 
scarcely have referred to the blessing awaiting the one who 
did not "stumble" over him. Once take Jesus' own point 
of view, that he was the Christ who was engaged in a work 

1 See especially Mark 3 : 23-26, and parallels : Luke 11 : 18 ; 13 : 16 ; cf. Acts 10 : 38. 
^ Isa. 35 : 5, 6, is repeatedly applied to messianic times by the rabbis. Edees- 
HEIM, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. II, p. 725, 



96 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

of preparation while he awaited the Father's call to establish 
the kingdom, and all difficulty vanishes. The fact that 
JesTis did not explicitly say "Yes" to John's question was 
simply due to caution. He had his idea of the true mes- 
sianic work; the people had theirs. He could not and he 
would not endanger his own ideal by even apparently yield- 
ing to theirs. He that had ears to hear could hear, and he 
that had eyes to see could see.^ 

While there is not quite the same distinctness in the 
words of Jesus at Nazareth,^ their general import is obviously 
the same. The reference to the fact that the Spirit of the 
Lord was upon him might possibly imply only his prophetic 
call to announce the acceptable year of the Lord. Yet the 
reference is clearly to himself, and, taken in connection with 
his reply to John and his experience at the baptism, it may 
certainly be interpreted as expressing the same distinct 
consciousness of his messiahship. 

It is generally admitted that Jesus accepted the mes- 
sianic title at Cgesarea Philippi.^ For the purpose of the 
present discussion there is no need to consider again the 
question as to whether this was the first time that his dis- 
ciples considered him as Christ. This matter is not so vital 
as the fact that they did so accept him. What their con- 
fession involved it is easy to see. They believed that he 
was the Christ, in the sense that his personality was so 
august and mighty as to convince them that he must in the 
near future take up the messianic work. In other words, 
they ascribed to him future messianic power. That they 
expected this future to be in general similar to that expected 

iHoLTZMANN, Leben Jesu, pp. 169-71, makes the words of Jesus apply to the 
kingdom and the messianic age rather than to himself. But what point has such an 
answer? John knew the messianic age was close at hand. What he wished to 
know was whether Jesus was the Christ. Even on Holtzmann's own ground it fol- 
lows that the words of Jesus form an affirmative reply to the Baptist's question. 
For if the messianic age was really shown to be present by his works, then certainly 
he must have been understood to be the one who introduced it. 

2 Luke 4 : 16-30. 3 Mark 8 : 27-30 and parallels. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 97 

by the Pharisees appears not only from the hope of the New 
Testament church, which will be considered presently, but 
from their own words and Peter's rebuke of Jesus. ^ It was in 
this sense that Jesus must have accepted their confession of 
faith in himself. For it can hardly be doubted that he did 
accept the title. The oldest source, it is true, does not state 
this explicitly, but, on the other hand, there is recorded no 
refusal of the title on his part, and the story evidently 
implies acceptance. If the additional material in Matthew^ 
be accepted, any question as to the attitude of Jesus is super- 
fluous. He is there represented as giving Peter the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven, and as making him the foundation 
of his church. His subsequent conversation with Peter 
concerning the suffering which awaited him at Jerusalem is 
most naturally understood as implying that Jesus was by 
both himself and Peter assumed to be Christ. Here again 
the account in Matthew^ adds an explanatory saying which 
makes the reference more distinct, but the Markan source^ 
can be understood in only one way. What this interpreta- 
tion is will at once appear from the fact that in the latter 
part of the words spoken at this time^ the reference is both 
to the speedy coming of the kingdom and to his own return 
"in the glory of his father with the holy angels." 

From the time of the confession of Peter at Csesarea Phi- 
lippi until his death, Jesus is represented as more openly 
disclosing his messianic position, though often with empha- 
sis upon matters like suffering and death which the Twelve 
could not recognize as compatible with messianic felicity 
and glory. At the same time, he more completely appropri- 
ates an eschatological significance. He treats with increas- 
ing emphasis the future kingdom and its world-judgment. 
It is true that in some cases his teaching concerning the 

1 Mark 8: 31:33; 9:11; 10:35-37; 11:1-10 (parallels in each case) ; c/. also Acts 1:6. 
216:17-19. 3i6:20f. * Mark 8 : 31-33. 5 Mark 8:34-39. 



98 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

kingdom does not expressly involve his own messianic posi- 
tion, and might have been spoken by one who held himself 
a prophet rather than the Messiah ; but, on the other hand, 
there are events and sayings which must be eliminated 
before the general content and connotation of his words can 
acquire a non-messianic character. It is not merely that 
Jesus permits himself to be called "son of David." ^ He 
promised those of his disciples who have made great earthly 
sacrifices the reward of eternal life in the world to come.^ 
In the case of the request of James and John,^ he does not 
deny their assumption that he is to sit as king in glory, but 
replies to them from their own point of view, denying only 
that he himself has the right to distribute those honors 
which should be given by God himself. Such a denial as 
this can by no means be interpreted to imply that Jesus 
conceived of himself as something less than the Messiah. 
Had this been the case, it would have been simple honesty 
for him to have disabused his disciples' minds, and to have 
declared that not he, but another, was to come in royal 
glory. As it stands, his reference is to the fact commonly 
recognized by all Messianists, that the Messiah himself was 
subordinate to God. 

The triumphal entry* is not interpreted in the oldest 
source as in any way intended by Jesus to be a dramatic 
presentation of messianic claim, although this interpretation 
is given it by both the first and the fourth evangelists.^ 
None the less, he allowed the crowds to attribute to him 
messianic importance, if not the messianic title.^ A com- 
parison of the four gospels shows that the cry of the people 
is essentially the same in all accounts except that of Mark. 

1 Mark 10 : 46-48 and parallels. 2 Mark 10 : 28-30. 3 Mark 10 : 35-45. 

4 Mark 11 : 1-11 and :parallels. 5 Matt. 21 : 4, 5 ; John 12 : 14-16. 

6 The oldest source simply speaks of the kingdom of David. According to Matt. 
21:9, the people saluted him as the Son of David. Similarly Luke 19:38 and John 
12 : 13 speak of him expressly as the King. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 99 

In that, although Jesus is said to be coming in the name of 
the Lord, he is not spoken of expressly as King. The dif- 
ference does not seem to be important. He who came in 
the name of the Lord, introducing the kingdom of David, 
could hardly be other than the Christ.^ 

The cleansing of the temple can hardly be counted as 
other than an expression of the same sense of messianic 
importance. This would be true whether it be held that 
there were two cleansings or one, although, if there were 
but one cleansing, and if that occurred at the end of the 
ministry, such an interpretation would appear the more 
certain.^ The ready yielding of the Sadducean officials of 
the temple to commands of Jesus is easily explicable in 

1 The additional verses of Luke 19 : 39, 40, in which he refuses to rebuke his dis- 
ciples for saluting him thus messianically, add nothing of importance beyond what 
is fairly implied by the other accounts. 

2 The questions at issue in harmonizing the two stories of the cleansing are cer- 
tainly perplexing. The similarity between the accounts of John 2 : 13-22, and Mark 
11 : 15-19 and parallels is too striking to argue that the two are independent accounts 
of separate events. The only serious objection to our immediately identifying them 
lies in the position accorded the event in the two sets of sources. (Yet see Hutton, 
Theological Essays.) From the point of view of a reasonable criticism, however, 
this difficulty vanishes, and it is permissible to follow obvious probabilities and 
identify the two accounts. The question, however, as to whether the cleansing 
belongs at the beginning or at the end of the public ministry of Jesus is one on 
which there will always be difference of opinion until we have reached a more 
definite conclusion concerning the composition of the Fourth Gospel. Briefly stated, 
the situation amounts to this: Everything in the nature of the event favors the 
position accorded it by the synoptists. So far as the general character of the 
sources is concerned, it must be argued also that it is easier to transfer the section 
John 2 : 13 f . than it is that of Mark 11 : 15-19. Tatian follows the synoptists' order. 
On the other hand, the chronological expression Teaa-epaKovra icai e^ ereacv oiKoSoixridT] 
in John 2 : 20 can most easily be interpreted in the sense that the forty and six years 
had already elapsed and the building was still in the process of erection. Cf. 4 Esdras, 
5 : 16. Yet the fact that the aorist was used with the dative may possibly indicate 
that the temple was not still in process of erection, but that it had taken forty-six 
years to build it. In that case the expression has no chronological bearing what- 
ever. When one balances all these data, it seems on the whole more reasonable to 
argue that the datum of the forty and six years was due to a careful calculation on 
the part of the editor of the Fourth Gospel, made in the interest of his peculiar 
chronology. Certainly such a view is no more extreme than that compelled by the 
discrepancy which exists between his statements concerning the date of the Last 
Supper and those of the sjmoptists. If no other way of adjusting the chronology is 
discovered, and one is shut down to a choice between such a view as to the forty 
and six years, and the results which follow from transferring the cleansing, recorded 
in the Markan source, to the early Judean ministry, the former is certainly preferable. 



L.ofC. 



100 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

view of the reception accorded liim at his entry to Jernsalem, 
and the act, though by no means unlike those of a prophet, 
is entirely in keeping with the general antagonism of Jesus 
toward the Pharisees, consequent upon his messianic con- 
sciousness. 

Most clearly do the gospel records show that during his 
last days Jesus spoke of himself in messianic terms.^ Among 
the sayings of these days attention must first be called to 
the eschatological address of Mark, chap. 13.^ Before, how- 
ever, we can safely use material contained in it, a conclusion 
must be reached as to whether or not it truly represents the 
teaching of Jesus. Recent critics^ have regarded the sec- 
tion as composite, vss. 7, 8, 14-20, 24-27, 30, 31 being held 
to be no part of the original discourse of Jesus.* Whatever 
position one may take as regards this proposed critical 
division, it is clear that in vss. 5 and 6 there is a reference 
of Jesus to his messianic position. Many were to come in 
his name, saying: "I am He," that is, the Christ. If vss. 
24-27 be not an apostolic addition, such a reference becomes 

1 At a first glance it might appear that reference cannot be made fairly to Matt. 
23:34, because Luke 11:49 substitutes "the wisdom of God" for "I;" but the real 
content of both passages is applicable only to the time of speaking, and although 
it is possible that the saying is in its more original form in Luke, the passage in 
Matt. 23:37-39 certainly contains a logion which refers to Jesus himself (c/. Luke 
13 : 34, 35), It will be impossible therefore, without destroying the text, to deny that 
the passage in some way gives expression to Jesus' conception of his own mission. 

2 In general, see Haupt, Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu. 

3 Notably, Wendt, Lehre Jesu, Vol. I, pp. 10 f.; H. J. Holtzmann, Einleitung, 
N. T. TheoL; O. Holtzmann, Leben Jesu, pp. 359 f. ; Chaeles, Eschatology, pp. 
323-29; Bousset, Lehre Jesu. 

4 The grounds for such an opinion are, first, a comparison of Mark 13: 10 with 
Matt. 10:23; second, vss. 14-20, in the light of the call 6 avaytyvdJa-Kuiv voetrw, could 
hardly have come from Jesus ; third, there seems to be contradiction between vss. 
13 and 18-20; fourth, the two sections of the discourse deal with different subjects, 
vss, 7, 8, 14-20, 24-27, 30, 31, dealing with terrible sufferings which are the result of 
wars, famines, the destruction of Jerusalem, rising at last into apocalyptic predic- 
tion, while the other half, vss. 5, 6, 21-23, 9-13, 28, 29, 32-37, deal with the persecutions 
to which the disciples are to be subjected and with the reward which is certainly to 
be theirs. It is held that the first-named verses constitute a section of the discourse 
which is a Jewish Christian apocalypse, written in 67-68 A. D., which has been 
added to genuine sayings of Jesus. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 101 

genuinely apocalyptic.^ Certainly the specific reference to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, in the light of our discussion,^ 
seems more foreign to the method of Jesus than the apoca- 
lyptic presentation of the future. 

The vision of judgment in Matt. 25:31-46 is possibly a 
homily of the early church, for it seems out of keeping with 
the general method of Jesus. In view of what we know as 
to the literary habits of the early Christians,^ it would have 
been by no means strange if there should have developed an 
apocalyptic teaching which attempted to do for the ethical 
life what this section so forcibly does. Further, the general 
tone of the address is impersonal. In no case is Jesus 
represented as uttering the various sentences, but they are 
put into the mouth of "the King."* The general teaching 
is in harmony with that of Jesus, but it will probably be 
safer not to use the section as coming from him. 

, No such doubt can, however, fairly rest upon the words of 
Jesus uttered at the Last Supper.^ Although their precise 
meaning is very difficult to grasp, the only explanation which is 
possible lies in the fact that, anticipating death, Jesus yet 
expected that he would share in a resurrection and so enter 
the kingdom of God.^ Such a belief in his own resurrection 
had already appeared in his own words to his disciples^ just 
subsequent to the confession of Peter at Csesarea Philippi.^ 

iJt is this fact that leads Chaeles, Eschatology, p. 328, to reject them as non- 
authentic. The reason for this decision is that he finds so many parallels to the 
sayings in the apocalyptic half of the chapter in Jewish literature. Such an argu- 
ment does not appear conclusive. It is a fair question whether the test proposed by 
Wendt and adopted by Charles and others be not too subjective. A priori is it any 
more probable that Jesus would have predicted the sujfferings of his disciples than 
that he would have dealt in a general apocalyptic fashion with the end of the age? 

2 Cf. especially the influence of Dan. 7 : 13. 3 cf. The Shepherd of Hermas. 

4 Matt. 25 : 34, 40, 41, 45. 5 Luke 22 : 15, 16. 

6 The possibility that Jesus expected that before he ate another passover the 
kingdom would be established on the earth is not to be denied, but hardly to be 
treated very seriously. 

'Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34. 

8 The reference in Matt. 12:40 to the similarity between the circumstances of the 
mission of Jonah and that of the Son of man must be disregarded as an interpola- 



102 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

By all means the most important of the messianic affirma- 
tions of Jesus are those which are to be found in the account 
of his trial. Both before the Jewish authorities and the 
Roman Jesus was charged with being the Christ. At the 
first trial, it is true, the Jewish authorities seemed to have 
endeavored at the start to condemn him on other grounds, 
but, these attempts failing, the high-priest adjured him in 
the name of the living God^ to tell them whether or not he 
was the Christ. The reply of Jesus in Mark is unmistakable. 
"I am," he said — and immediately made reference to an 
eschatological coming of the Son of man. Because of these 
words he was condemned. It was the same charge of being 
the Messiah, although cast in words fit to appeal to the 
Roman authorities, that was made against Jesus in his trial 
before Pilate. The Jews, however, at that time gave the 
term "Christ" the Zealot significance. Again he admitted 
the charge and as the king of the Jews Jesus was finally 
crucified.^ 

Ill 

It is at this point we can best consider the terms which 
Jesus uses as self-designations. 

1. First and most important of these is the term "Son of 
man," 6 uto? rod avOpcoirov. 

Within recent years there has been much discussion as to 
whether or not this term is the outcome of a mistranslation 
due to the misinterpretation of the Aramaic phrase (i^)ir]5}< ^2. 
It is urged by Wellhausen,^ Lietzmann,* Schmidt,^ that the 

tion. The original account made the repentance of the Ninevites the real sign of 
Jonah. The reference is lacking in Mark and Luke 11 : 32. In the entire matter of 
the reference of Jesus to his resurrection see Schwaetzkopff, Prophecies of Jesus 
Christ. 

1 Mark 14 : 53-64 ; Matt. 26 : 57-66. 2 Mark 15 : 1-15. 

Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, Vol. VI, pp. 187-215. ^Der Menschensohn. 

^ Encyclopcedia Biblica, art. "Son of Man;" The Son of Man and The Son of 
God. See for summary of recent discussion Drummond, "Son of Man." Journal of 
Biblical Studies, 1902. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 103 

Aramaic term IS"i2JwJS5 "^S, means simply "man," and that its 
translation 6 f/o? rod avOpwirov is due to the failure of the 
Christian writers to grasp its real force. On the other hand, 
Dalman^ criticises very vigorously this position and insists 
that the Greek translation is by no means untrue to the 
Aramaic original. But it is hard to see that the matter is 
one to be settled on purely philological grounds. Even 
though Dalman's position be mistaken and Wellhausen's be 
correct, there is no reason why "the Man" or "Man" should 
not have been given a peculiar force and reference by Jesus. 
In no case is the idea of sonship of man vital to the term as 
he used it. Whatever force one finds in it must be one of 
connotation, not of strict translation.^ Most scholars would 
admit that certain sayings in which the term appears were 
uttered by Jesus, and it is from this fact that we must pro- 
ceed. The point at issue in these instances becomes one of 
exegesis, not of criticism. To argue that all the expressions 
in which the phrase is used have reference to humanity in 
general is to do violence to any true exegetical method.^ 
But this is not all. The phrase is represented as being used 
by Jesus to refer to himself as Judge.* To argue that these 
passages are Christian comments added to the words of 
Jesus is certainly to base conclusions on no clear evidence. 
Let it be repeated: we are dealing, not with a question of 
translation or mistranslation, but with a question as to what 
the term, whether properly "Man" or "Son of man," 
connoted. We may grant that in such a passage as Matt. 
8 : 20 and Luke 9 : 58 it may have simply the force of "a man," 
but it is certainly unnecessary to argue that Jesus could not 

1 Words of Jesus, pp. 234-67. See also Schmiedel, Protestantische Monatshefte, 
1848, pp. 252-67,291-308; 1901, pp. 333-51 ; Bousset, Religion des Judenthums, pp. 248-55. 

2 A view very similar to this is that of Bousset, Religion des Judenthums, p. 252. 

3 Cf. Matt. 11 : 18; 19 ; Luke 7 : 33, 34, where any contrast between John the Baptist 
and humanity at large is altogether meaningless. So, too, Mark 10:44, 45; Luke 
19:10. 

4Mark8:38; 14:62. 



104 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

at other times have used the term with special reference to 
himself as the type of the kingdom.^ 

There are three considerations here of primary impor- 
tance : the use of the term in the Enoch literature;"^ the 
wide influence of the book of Daniel; and the practical 
absence of any use of the term by the early church as 
descriptive of Jesus. 

a) As regards the use of the term in the Enoch literature, 
there has been no small attempt to show that the sections in 
which the term occurs are either Christian interpolations or 
due to the influence of Christian thought. Recent criti- 
cism,^ however, has shown conclusively the impossibility of 
attributing these sections to Christian influences. There is 
in them absolutely nothing that can reasonably argue Chris- 
tian origin ; but, on the contrary, they are thoroughly pharisaic 
in spirit. 

h) The probability that the term did have some messianic 
connotation gains strength from the fact that the apocalyptic 
sections of Daniel were in general use in the time of Jesus. 
We have here at our disposal not only the existence of the 
apocalyptic literature, so full of echoes of the Daniel apoca- 
lypse, but also clear evidence of the appeal to and interp-^-e- 
tation of the book by Josephus as one commonly read and 
accepted.* In fact, every argument for the existence of 
Daniel in the time of Jesus is an argument for the currency 

1 FiEBiG, Der Menschensohn, holds that the Aramaic ^TDliC ^iH aiid T1J2X HH may 
be translated "man" in a collective sense {der Mensch), "a man,"' or "anyone," ac- 
cording to its context. The only difference he sees between 6 av0pajTTo? and 6 vio? tov 
avQp^TTov as used by the gospels is that the latter refers to Dan. 7 : 13, which he takes 
in a personal sense. According to this view, Jesus used the word with a messianic 
connotation {Der Menschensohn, p. 120). The definite Greek form with the article 
a5 distinct from vib? av^puJn-ou of the LXX rendering of Dan. 7 : 13 is a new translation 
of the Aramaic of that passage. 

2Eth.£noc7i, 46:2-4; 48:2; 62:5-9; 63:11; 69:26,29; 70:1. 

3BOUSSET, Religion des Judenthums, pp. 13, 248; Sck&eee, Geschichte, etc.3, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 200-202; Kautzsch, Apoc. und Pseud., Vol. II, p. 252. 

4 See for details Geelach, Die Weissagungen d. A. T. in den Schriften d. Fl' 
Josephus. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 105 

of the book among the people. It may therefore be assumed 
that the term ITD^^H, used in Dan. 7:13 to symbolize the 
coming kingdom of the saints, was in current use and given 
a more or less distinct messianic content. This is not of 
necessity to argue that the Jews commonly conceived of the 
term as referring to a personal Messiah. In this sense its 
use by the Enoch literature is unique in pre-Christian writ- 
ings, being approached, indeed, only once in post-Christian 
Jewish literature.^ It does, however, argue that Jesus could 
use it in the symbolical force of Daniel and be understood 
by his hearers to portray the character of the kingdom.^ 

c) In the literature of the early church other than the 
gospels it is to be noticed that the term is never used of 
Jesus except in Acts 7:56.^ Various conjectures have been 
made to account for this fact, but its most plausible explana- 
tion seems to be that after his death the followers of Jesus 
used the term "Christ" as a precise description of their 
belief in him. There was, indeed, no good reason for early 
Christians to use a more obscure term. Most of the New 
Testament literature, it is true, was written before the 
gospels, and this fact might conceivably argue that the term 
was the ixivention of the second generation of Christians. 
But it is impossible to discover a motive for such invention, 
or in any way to account for its appearance, unless the 
evangelists may have mistranslated the Aramaic words of 
Jesus — a hypothesis already considered. That when the 

UEsdras, 13:3, 5, 12,25,51. 

2FIEBIG, Der Menschensohn, pp. 75 f., discusses fully Dan. 7:13 as point of 
departure from the force of the term as used by Jesus. He finds the similarities in 
the two usages to be largely in their eschatology. The differences he discovers to be 
numerous. Fiebig's opinion that the term in Dan. 7 : 13 is personal and refers to the 
Messiah can hardly be accepted. That kingdom was to be like the "Son of Man" 
or "The Man." To set himself forward as that "Son of Man " or " Man " would be 
by no means to be understood as indicating that Jesus considered himself the Christ. 
It would, however, undoubtedly lead to his being understood as presenting himself 
as the type of such a kingdom, whether it were to be founded by himself or another. 

3 In Rev. 1:13; 14:14, the phrase ofj-oiov vibv avOpuinov is used, but evidently in a 
general sense of " a man." 



106 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

term was used by the evangelists it was regarded as a self- 
appellation of Jesus seems clear from a comparison of Mark 
8: 27 with the parallel question of Matt. 16: 13. 

In view of these facts, therefore, the most satisfactory- 
conclusion seems to be this: Totally apart from its etymo- 
logical force, Jesus used the Aramaic term translated 6 uto? 
Tov avOpcoTTov (a) as a self -appellation ; (b) derived from the 
messianic passage of Dan. 7:13; (c) with a meaning which 
while not necessarily seen by all his hearers to be a claim 
to personal messianic character, would be seen by all those 
familiar with Dan. 7: 13 to imply that he regarded his life 
as in some way typifying that life which should characterize 
those who were preparing for the coming kingdom. In 
other words, in the mind of Jesus himself it would express 
his messianic character in its moral and exemplary aspects. 

2. The term "Christ" is never found in the gospels as a 
self-appellation of Jesus. In the synoptic account the word 
is not used except by the evangelists as a descriptive term,^ 
and in the Johannine account Jesus does not call himself 
the Christ except by implication to the woman at Samaria.^ 
Even after the confession of Peter at Csesarea Philippi, he 
never used the word with explicit reference to himself. It 
is lacking even in Mark 14 : 61, when Jesus answers the 
high-priest's question in the affirmative.^ 

3. So also in the case of the term "Son of God." Jesus 
himself does not use the expression, although others use it 
with reference to him.* It is, of course, true that Jesus 
frequently speaks of God as "Father" and of himself as 

iMatt. 1:1, 18; 11:2; Mark 1:1, 34; Luke 4:41. 2 John 4:25,26. 

3 Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 289 f., gives full treatment of the meaning of the 
term "Christ." 

4 Mark 3 : 11 ; 5:7; 15 : 39 ; John 1 : 49. A possible exception should be made to 
this general statement in the text of John 10 : 36 ; 11 : 4 ; but in the light of the general 
character of the Fourth Gospel, it would be hardly safe to say that the evangelist 
had not substituted a term expressive of his own estimate of Jesus for the word 
which Jesus himself used. 



Jesus' Conception of Himself as Messiah 107 

"the Son," but this is quite another matter from speak- 
ing of himself as 6 uto? rod Oeov.^ This title is, indeed, 
applied by Peter to Jesus, according to Matt. 16:16, but 
this is clearly an addition of the evangelist. It is not 
found in the original account in Mark 8:29. That Jesus 
spoke of God as his Father in some unique sense cannot be 
denied, but such sayings as imply this do not employ either 
o vlo^ Tov 6eov or vlb^ deov, and can be considered more prop- 
erly where the content of the messianic consciousness of 
Jesus is under consideration. 

After thus examining the sayings of Jesus concerning 
his relation to the kingdom, it is impossible to reach any 
other conclusion than that he was convinced that he was 
the Christ and that he was to inaugurate the kingdom he 
foretold, and the influence of which he was already bring- 
ing to bear upon men. Yet such a conclusion as yet is 
largely formal. The content of this estimate of himself, 
both personally and as conditioned by his relation to the 
kingdom, must now be considered. 

1 For elaborate discussion see Dalman, Words of Jesus, pp. 268-89. His con- 
clusion is that the term is sometimes a synonym of Messiah, and at other times 
(e. g., Matt. 16 : 16 ; Luke 1 : 35 ; 3 : 38) is used in a Hellenistic sense involving paternity. 



CHAPTER V 
THE CONTENT OF THE MESSIANIC SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

If it be true that Jesus conceived of himself as the Christ, 
the next question to be answered concerns the content which 
he gave the term. It has always been the opinion of students 
of his life, and of the church generally, that he gave to the 
term a somewhat different force from that given by his con- 
temporaries. How justifiable is such an opinion will at 
once appear. 

I 

1. The first modification is fundamental: he broke utterly 
with Pharisaism as a system. Eschatological messianism 
was peculiarly the property of the Pharisee and the Essene. 
New Testament scholars have long since abandoned any 
hope of showing that Jesus was an Essene or intimately 
connected with the fraternity. His relations to pharisaism 
cannot be determined so promptly. On the one side, he 
certainly had much in common with their fundamental reli- 
gious opinions. Even in the process of his denunciation of 
their mistakes he distinctly says that the scribes and law- 
yers sit in Moses's seat, and bids his disciples follow their 
instructions,^ though avoiding their practice. In such a 
saying he bears deserved testimony to the position which 
ideally the representatives of the law of Jehovah occupied. 

Further, it would seem probable that in the early part of 
his ministry the Pharisees saw in Jesus one who was at 
vital points apparently in sympathy with them. It was not 
until he began the more positive instruction of his disciples, 
and showed indifference to the oral law, that their suspicions 

1 Matt. 23:2. 

108 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 109 

were aroused. Little by little these suspicions grew into 
distrust and enmity. In each step, however, the develop- 
ment of hostility was the outcome of some positive act or 
word of Jesus himself. It is a serious mistake to think of 
Jesus as being a passive martyr; on the contrary, it was he 
who was the aggressor, and it is in his positive rejection of 
certain elements of pharisaism that we have an expression 
of those general principles which led him to modify the 
messianic conception he had inherited. 

Apart from their expectation of the coming kingdom of 
Israel, four things were the special mark of the Pharisee 
movement: the elaboration of sabbath observance, scrupu- 
lousness as to the requirement to pay tithes, an equally 
scrupulous regard for the laws of ceremonial purity, and a 
close adherence to the rapidly developing oral law. All four 
could be classified under the fundamental conception of the 
society-holiness through separation. 

Every student of the life and teaching of Jesus will at 
once recognize that these four traits, with their consequent 
idea of the separation of the good man from the evil, are the 
very points at which Jesus made his attack. Not only was 
he a friend of the despised masses,^ but he distinctly repu- 
diated the pharisaic teaching concerning the sabbath;^ de- 
clared that nothing a man ate could defile him, even though 
he was not ceremonially clean ;^ declared the Pharisee was 
making the word of God of no avail through his tradition;* 
and censured the tendency to substitute the principles of 
tithing for fundamental morality and religion.^ Indeed, he 
went farther, and excused his disciples for not following the 
disciples of John the Baptist in adopting the incipient 
asceticism of the Pharisees shown in their new regard for 

1 Mark 2 : 15, 16 ; Matt. 11 : 19 ; Luke 15 : 1. 

2Mark2:23-27; 3:2f.; Matt. 12:10,11; JohnSrlf.; 7:22 f.; 9:lf. 

3 Mark 7 : 1 f . i Mark 7 : 8-13 ; cf. Matt, 23 : 5 f . 5 Matt. 23 : 23-25. 



110 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

fasting.^ In the light of this attitude toward pharisaism as 
a system, it is not surprising to find him constantly censur- 
ing the Pharisees as a class for insincerity and casuistry in 
the maintenance of their religious reputation.^ But so to 
break with pharisaism was to abandon many of the very 
principles that controlled pharisaic messianism, and to sub- 
stitute for formal requirements the recognition of actual 
ethical conditions. 

2. More distinctly revolutionary was the new teaching of 
Jesus concerning God. It is absolutely essential for the 
entire messianic scheme of pharisaism that Grod be thought 
of in precisely the same way as the Pharisee thought of him, 
namely, as a Judge and King. In Judaism such a concep- 
tion is not a matter of analogy ; it is description. As it has 
already appeared from our survey of Jewish literature, the 
kingdom of God was really to be a kingdom of Jews, and 
God was to reign over them just as truly as Herod reigned 
over Judea. The Judge no more than the judgment was a 
figure of speech. God was actually to undertake judicial 
functions. 

Jesus does not attempt a precise definition of the Deity. 
His language is always one of analogy descriptive of the 
moral character of God and his attitude toward mankind. 
But even by way of analogy he seldom speaks of God as a 
King or Judge. To him God was to be thought of as a 
Father. Such an analogy, of course, did not exclude the 
other and sterner conception, but it goes far toward modify- 
ing any religious or theological teaching derived from the 
forensic concept. The great effort of Jesus was to induce 
men and women to see fatherliness in the divine ruler; not 
severity, or even bald justice. How far this modified his 
conception of messiahship is immediately evident. The 
Christ who was to reveal God's will and prepare men for the 

1 Mark 2 : 18-22. 2 For instance, Matt. 22 : 14-33. 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 111 

coming kingdom could not insist upon judgment so much as 
upon the love that welcomed the penitent ; not so much upon 
the destruction of one's enemies as upon that self-sacrifice 
revealed by the heavenly Father in his treatment of bad 
men.^ 

3. More specific was Jesus' rejection of the current con- 
ception of the Christ as the Son of David.^ The point at 
issue in his well-known question as to the messianic teaching 
of the scribes was not merely of descent. The term "Son of 
David" had become expressive of the entire messianic idea 
as held by all Jews, whether scribes or common people. It 
indicated that the new kingdom was to be essentially Jewish, 
just as its king was to be the representative of the most 
typical royal family of Hebrew history. More than that, it 
declared the new kingdom to be essentially military, for to 
the Jew David was essentially a man of war, a conqueror of 
the enemies of Israel.^ To describe the messianic king as 
his son was to ascribe to him the same military prowess.* All 
this Jesus rejected. The Messiah was to be greater than 
David; his glory was to be his own and not derived from 
descent. 

4. Similarly, at least in the latter part of his ministry, he 
clearly repudiated the idea that the Jews had any monopoly 
upon the coming kingdom. Those who were brought to the 
wedding feast from the highways and hedges were the out- 
cast of Jews and gentiles.^ Many were to come from the 
east and the west, the north and the south, and sit down 
with Abraham, while the children of the kingdom, the Jews, 
were to be cast out.^ And the risen Lord commanded his 
apostles to disciple all nations.' It is to be noticed also that 
in thus extending the kingdom to the gentiles Jesus does 
not make proselytism a condition of entering it. In his 

1 Matt. 5 : 44-48, 2 Mark 12 : 35. 3 1 Sam. 16 : 18 ; 2 Sam. 17 : 8 ; 1 Chron. 28 : 3. 
* C/. Ps. 72 : 8. 5 Matt. 22 : 1-14. 6 Matt. 8 : 11, 12. 7 Matt. 28 : 19. 



112 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

entire teaching there is not the slightest reference to the 
claim, subsequently urged by his followers in Jerusalem^ 
that it was necessary for a man to keep the law of Moses in 
order to be saved. The condition of entrance was clearly 
ethical. The pure in heart were to see God; the peace- 
makers were to be called the children of God ; the meek were 
to inherit the earth.^ This teaching of Jesus concerning the 
subjects of the kingdom supplements his teaching as to the 
supreme dignity of the Christ. A Jewish king could expect 
only Jewish subjects or proselytes. The kingdom of one 
greater than David would be hampered by no such limita- 
tion. Such a universalizing of the messianic concept does 
not modify the idea of the kingdom as an eschatological 
institution, but introduces a fundamental change in the 
conditions of membership in it. It goes far also to show 
that in the teaching of Jesus the most fundamental thing 
was not the kingdom itself, but that quality of life which 
assured a participation in its blessings. 

5. More revolutionary, if possible, than this universalizing 
of the messianic ideas is Jesus' belief in the necessity of the 
Christ's suffering. In all Jewish literature such a belief 
had been wanting. Later, it is true, doubtless under the 
force of Christian argument, the rabbis developed a theory 
of a Messiah who was to suffer, but it was never a universal 
belief.^ The source of so original and radical a modification 
of the messianic concept as this of Jesus is really twofold. 
On the one side was his own experience, which led him to 
see how inevitable and fatal would be the hostility of the 
raligious authorities of his people; and on the other were 
those scriptural statements, like Isa., chap. 53, overlooked or 
repudiated* by the Jews, which foretold the suffering of the 

1 Acts 15:1. 2 Matt. 5 : 3-12. 

sDalman, Der leidende und der sterbende Messias : Wunsche, Die Leiden des 
Messias. 

4 Cf. Targum of Jonathan., in loco. 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 113 

Servant of Jehovah. The full meaning of this element of 
his messianic concept can be appreciated only as one grasps 
JesTis' conviction that suffering and death v^ere not merely 
accidental to his career, but were an essential part of his 
messianic work. It was the Father's will that he drink the 
cup; it was the Father's will that he suffer and die. He 
saw clearly that his was not a mere individual's fate. He died 
and knew he must die, not as. Jesus the carpenter or teacher, 
but as Jesus the Christ. His blood was to be shed for many.^ 

It was doubtless in part because of this growing convic- 
tion of the necessity of his death as a part of his revelation 
that God was fatherly, and that all things in life could be 
accepted as an expression of divine love, that Jesus main- 
tained the silence already noticed concerning his messiahship. 
As modified by him, the term "Messiah" could not have 
been apprehended by the people; to use it without the 
change of content would be to confirm his followers and the 
people in those very opinions as to the kingdom and its 
Christ which he was seeking to change. How impossible 
it would have been to induce the people at large to believe 
that the Christ was to suffer is to be seen in the impossibility 
of inducing even the Twelve to accept his forecast of his 
death. They could not understand what he meant by his 
sad words, and believed that he must certainly be mistaken. 
Their preconception as to the career of the Christ completely 
excluded all expectation of anything but glorious victory. 
And they feared to question him concerning the new teaching.^ 

6. It is not difficult from this point of view to appreciate 
the reference by Jesus to his resurrection. It is true that 
certain of the sayings attributed to him may not be authen- 
tic,^ but there is no good a priori ground for refusing to 

3 1 Cor. 11 : 25 f . ; Mark 14 : 24. The words in Matt. 26 : 28, el? acpeatv i/aapTt'cov, while 
probably expressing a legitimate implication of the thought of Jesus, clearly are an 
explanatory addition of the evangelist. Yet see Denney, The Death of Christ, pp. 58 f . 

2 Mark 8 : 31—9 : 1 ; 9 : 30-32. 3 Matt. 12 : 40. 



114 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

believe that a Christ who believed that he must suffer and 
die would also believe that, siniply because he was the Christ 
he would have power enough to accomplish his results after 
death. It is to be borne in mind that the resurrection of 
the righteous dead was an essential part of the pharisaic 
belief as to the kingdom. If, then, the Christ were to die 
before he had completed his messianic work, the inference 
would be inevitable that he himself must partake of this 
same resurrection. Here, too, the disciples seemed to have 
been utterly at a loss to understand what he meant, and the 
conception of a Christ who attained supreme power by 
resurrection was as original with Jesus as that of a Christ 
who shared humanity's common lot of suffering and death. ^ 

II 

To a considerable extent, any decision as to the general 
messianic position of Jesus, and especially concerning his 
idea of the kingdom, carry with them a determination as to the 
term "Christ." If Jesus thought of the kingdom of God as 
fundamentally eschatological, then he must have thought of 
himself as the eschatological Christ. Such a conclusion will 
be reached also by a process of elimination. Evidently he 
did not think of himself as the political revolutionist, and 
in the same proportion as the kingdom was to be the gift of 
God rather than a result of the growth of the disciples in 
number and influence, his messianic work would be future. 
Such considerations mark the point of departure for any 
study of the content of his messianic consciousness. The 
problem of his messiahship, like the problem of his king- 
dom, is one that concerns the adjustment of the eschatologi- 
cal expectation with an actual historical career. 

Jesus' teaching concerning the kingdom gives us also 
data for determining his conception of messiahship. For- 

1 See ScHWARTZKOPFF, Prophecies of Jesus Christ concerning His Death and 
Resurrection. 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 115 

mally speaking, the kingdom was eschatological, but, while 
its coming was delayed, the struggle with the kingdom of 
Satan had already begun, and its future members, while 
preparing to enter it, were in a prophetic sense the kingdom 
itself. Co-ordinate with these two periods in the history of 
the kingdom would be naturally two periods of messiahship^ 
In the first the Messiah would be engaged in prophetic work ; 
in the second, which would open with the coming of the 
kingdom, he would be the messianic "Judge" and "King." 
That Jesus himself believed that he was not only the Messiah, 
but was actually doing messianic work during the ministry, 
has already appeared. Herein he differed from his disciples. 
They could believe that he was the Christ, but could not see 
that his work of teaching and of self-sacrificing service was 
a part of the messianic career. Still less during their associa- 
tion with him could they believe that death formed any part 
of messianic work. 

What was the adjustment which Jesus made in his own 
mind concerning his work of preparing men for the coming 
kingdom, and his work as the King and Judge of the king- 
dom when it came? Any difficulty involved in an answer 
to this question lies rather in the preconceptions of the 
interpreter rather than with Jesus himself. If we may 
judge from the simplest interpretation of his words, in his 
own mind the problem was one simply of two stages in his 
messianic activity — -the one prophetic and the other judicial 
and royal. Between the two lay death. That the harmo- 
nization of the two careers gave rise to no moral struggles 
on the part of Jesus we cannot assert. The whole signifi- 
cance of the temptation argues the contrary. Convinced as 
he was that he must undertake the new duties and exercise 
the new powers which were his because of the experience at 
the baptism, he was brought face to face with the fate of 
the prophets. If they suffered as the servants of God, cer- 



116 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

tainly he must. Nor is it too much to believe that he had 
already formulated that conception of the meaning of suffer- 
ing which it was to be his great miesion to exemplify. If 
God were the Father of righteous men, then certainly the 
sufferings which they underwent must be a part of the divine 
plan ; and if he, the Christ, were to bring to the world the 
revelation of God's fatherliness, then he must himself be 
ready to do this through sharing the fate of the noble army 
of martyrs. From the very beginning of his ministry it 
appears that he foresaw with more or less distinctness the 
tragedy through which he was to pass,^ and it is his own 
experience that he seeks to make that of his disciples when 
he insists that they must take up their cross and follow him. 
Yet such a period of humiliation and agony was but tempo- 
rary. He was to return again. Death was to be but the 
supreme sacrifice which he was to make in preparing men 
for the coming kingdom. He was to return as King and 
Judge. Of this assurance the evangelists do not permit us 
for a moment to doubt. It was this that nerved him for 
the final agony, as he foresaw it at the Last Supper. It 
was this future that he distinctly laid before the high-priest 
at his trial, and it was because of this, as much as anything 
else, that he was condemned to death as a blasphemer.^ In 
the mind of the early church there was no necessary chasm 
between the present and the coming glorious life, nor was 
there in the mind of Jesus. That personality which suffered 
in order to show men how to prepare for the coming kingdom 
was the same personality that was to return to introduce 
that kingdom.^ The resurrection would be the connecting 
link between the two messianic periods. 

10/. Mark 2:19 f. 2 Mark 14:60 f. 

3 There is no alternative for this view, except that which sees in Jesus' death a 
complete demolition of all his plans and in the words ascribed to him relative to 
the new kingdom, the beliefs of the early church. The question here is, however, 
precisely that which we have already discussed, and if Jesus believed that the 
kingdom was future, and at the same time believed that he was the Christ, the 
position taken in the text seems beyond question. 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 117 

As to the precise time when he should take up the full 
messianic work, Jesus is said^ expressly to have confessed 
ignorance. It must be admitted, however, that this verse 
sounds much like a gloss or editorial comment. At all 
events, however, it is clear that Jesus foretold his appearance 
as sudden and unexpected.^ It was to be preceded by perse- 
cution and preaching on the part of his disciples.^ If we 
follow the line of criticism already indicated and remove 
Mark 13:7-95, 14-20, 24-27, 30, 31 from their context, 
the program of events preceding and accompanying the 
coming of the Messiah is very indefinite.* If, however, 
they are retained it would appear that Jesus in some way 
correlated his return with the fall of Jerusalem. However 
that may be, the limit within which the messianic kingdom 
was to be established, and the Son of man was to return, is 
expressly stated to be the life of the generation to whom he 
preached.^ And it is in accordance with such conviction 
that the apostolic churches ordered their lives and hopes. 

Just what relation Jesus saw existed between his death 
and the entrance of his followers into the blessings of the 
heavenly kingdom is not clearly exhibited in the gospels. 
It is, indeed, possible to construct an argument*^ which 
would show that even at his baptism he consciously took up 
the work of the Suffering Servant. From such a point of 
departure it is easy, by the aid of the "ransom" saying,^ 
to discover in the words of Jesus a complete Pauline doc- 
trine of the atonement. Yet such a dogmatic exegesis does 

1 Mark 13: 32. 

2 Mark 13 : 35 ; Lnke 12 : 35, 46 ; Matt. 25 : 1. 13 ; possibly also Luke 17 : 20 f . 

3 Matt. 10 : 24, 25 ; Mark 4 : 17 ; Matt. 10 : 23. 

* These verses contain striking parallelisms with the thought of the apocalyptic 
literature, such as Apoc. Bar., 27: 2, 7; 48:32, 34, 37; 70: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8; 6:24; 9:3; 
4 Esdras, 5:9. As to the shortening of the days, see Apoc. Bar., 83 : 1, 4. 

5 Mark 9:1 and parallels; Matt. 10:23; 14:62. The current belief of the early 
church is to be seen also in John 21 : 20-23. 

6 Thus Denney, The Death of Christ. 7 Mark 10 : 43. 



118 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

not quite bring conviction. Jesus believed that his death 
was an integral part of his redemptive work as Messiah; of 
this we may be sure. In this sense it was vicarious and 
atoning. But this is far from saying that he regarded his 
death as in any true sense a "buying off" of God or Satan. ^ 
It was in behalf of others; it was not necessarily in the 
place of others. Through it many would be freed from the 
punishment which otherwise might be inflicted upon them. 
For the messianic work without it would be incomplete ; and 
without that messianic work the way of salvation would have 
been incomplete. 

So far we can go with assurance. But can we go farther ? 
Did Jesus consider his death as having, wholly apart from 
his career as Messiah, an efficiency in itself? On this we 
cannot speak from unquestionable data, and if we are to 
confine ourselves to the evangelists' records at our disposal, 
we must plead ignorance of any more precise thought than 
that he saved them as a Messiah who died. But the deliver- 
ance was no less real. The fear of death, the power of 
death, the distrust of God's love because of suffering — all 
these vanished when the Christ died. In very truth he 
submitted to that penalty which all lives must endure, but 
he suffered to conquer, and he died to rise. And all for the 
sake of others.^ 

Yet it must be constantly borne in mind that the content 
of the term in Jesus' teaching is not historically discon- 
nected with the messianism of his day. Such differences as 
may appear between the two systems are not radical, but 
modifications on the part of Jesus. The ground- work of 

1 The force of \vTpov avrl noWiav is not to be pushed into a literalizing of the 
figure. It is "deliverance at a cost" that is here set forth, not primarily a ransom 
in its literal sense. 

2 See Wendt, Teaching of Jesus. Vol. 11, pp. 218 f.; Stevens, Teaching of Jesus, 
chap, xii ; Theology of the New Testament, Part I, chap, x ; Stalkee, Christology of 
Jesus, chap, x; Beyschlag, New Testament Theology. Book I, chap, vi; Fbinb, 
Jestis Christus und Faulus, pp. 115-35. 



Content of Messianic Self-Consciousness 119 

his entire conception of the Messiah's work is conditioned 
by the eschatological kingdom. On this point Jesus was in 
accord with John the Baptist and with the entire apostolic 
church. He was to come in his kingdom;^ as the Son of 
man he was to be the judge sent by God.^ In the Johannine 
reworking of his sayings he is represented as promising to 
raise up those who believe upon him at the last day ^ and as 
going to prepare places for his followers, whom he is to 
return to take to himself.* Yet neither the kingdom nor 
the Messiah of the gospels is precisely that of Judaism. 
For Jesus was not utterly dependent upon his inherited 
concepts. A review of the modifications noted above will 
show that they appear wherever the inherited concept would 
he affected hy his self -consciousness. 

iMatt. 16:27, 28. 2 Mark 14: 62. 3 John 6 : 40-45. * John 14: If. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS IN THE MESSIANISM 
OF JESUS 

The results reached in the preceding chapter lead us 
out from the region of an historical, to that of a norma- 
tive investigation. We should do Jesus an injustice were 
we to leave the discussion of his messianic self-estimate 
at this point. The significance of the modifications made by 
him in Jewish messianism are too important to be overlooked. 
It is inconceivable that Christianity should have been the 
result of the mere belief either on the part of himself or of 
his disciples that he was in future to be the Christ of apoca- 
lyptic hopes. It is necessary above all things to discover 
just what role messianism, as it has been seen to exist in his 
teaching both as a general scheme and as a mold of his own 
self-consciousness, played in the entire body of teaching 
which he has bequeathed to us. The problem should be 
stated sharply. Were these modified messianic concepts so 
regulative and so absolutely essential to his function and 
his doctrine that to remove them would destroy his religious 
significance, or do they stand in such a relationship that 
they may be allowed for ? Might they be removed and still 
leave in the teaching and personality of Jesus truth of eter- 
nal significance? In other words, in order to have faith in 
Jesus is it necessary, on the basis of the gospels, to accept 
him as Christ in the strictly historical Jewish sense of the 
word? 

I 

The answer to such a question is not to be found in an 
appeal merely to the distinction between that which w^s 

120 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 121 

original with Jesus and that which was inherited by him 
from his Jewish environment. The question as to what is 
true and what is false in his teaching is not to be confused 
with the question as to what is inherited and what is original 
in his thought. The study of the messianism of his times 
gives us clearly the interpretative medium through which we 
must study him, and it further shows elements that were 
inherited rather than, strictly speaking, originated by him- 
self. It would be a mistake, however, to hold that all such 
heritage is to be rejected out of hand as utterly false. The 
two questions run, so to speak, at right angles to each other. 
Much of what he inherited was, as has already appeared, 
rejected by him. Some of that which he did not reject will 
be rejected by men in different intellectual conditions; but 
he would be an exceedingly rash man who should say that 
the entire messianic concept, as it reached Jesus, was without 
elements of truth. The practical problem for today lies just 
here. After a study of messianism enables us to understand 
Jesus better, there is still left the question as to what in his 
teaching is eternally true. 

It will, of course, be easier to discover what this per- 
manent element is after one has discovered what actually was 
original and what was inherited by him, but such a distinc- 
tion is not the final criterion. The entire eschatological 
scheme in which his teachings are apparently cast is not 
mere speculation. As it appears in the teaching of Jesus, the 
eschatological element was undoubtedly inherited, but none 
the less it included in itself at least two elements which are 
not at all dependent upon any particular coloring of the 
future, but summarize the deepest experiences which the Jew 
shared in common with all peoples. These two elements are 
the belief that the good man must survive death, and the 
belief that God is bound to come to the assistance of those 
who trust him. Such fundamental beliefs may be expressed 



122 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

in a great variety of ways — by the stoic, the cynic, and the 
mystic, as well as by the messianist. The fact that Jesus 
expressed these truths in the forms of messianism can be 
easily accounted for, but such an explanation does not destroy 
the truths themselves. Jesus, it will be recalled, made this 
plain when he made the enjoyment of the kingdom dependent 
upon one's possession of a life like God's. His rejection of 
many of the conceptions upon which messianism was really 
founded forces us to abandon any belief in the permanence 
of the particular form of his teaching given by these two 
elements of Jewish hope, but not in the truths they embody. 
For the Jewish eschatology does, indeed, embody truths. 
It may be and undoubtedly is true that the Jew did not 
analyze his hope ; but none the less messianism may properly 
be conceived of as a way of thinking of matters which are in 
no sense dependent upon the peculiar form in which they are 
portrayed. The portrayal of the Day of Judgment may be 
quite too naive for an age dominated by the concepts of physical 
science to accept, but its fundamental conception that good- 
ness must lead to blessing, and badness to suffering, is cer- 
tainly undeniable. The idea that the souls of the righteous 
dead should enter new physical bodies — if, indeed, that were 
commonly held by the Jews — is quite excluded by today's 
psychology, but the persistence of a self-sufficient personality 
after death is assuredly one element of this conception which 
is not to be denied. The glorious and eternal kingdom of 
the Jew was a dream which was never fulfilled, but the hope 
of a society in which righteousness is supreme is certainly 
one of the greatest treasures of humanity. The kingdom of 
Satan may be the outcome of Persian dualism, and the pit 
filled with fire prepared for demons and evil men may lie 
quite outside any scientific cosmogony, but the great reli- 
gious and moral principles which the Jew embodied in these 
concrete forms will never be denied. 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 123 

One would hardly be justified in assuming a priori that 
Jesus treated the messianic expectation in such a generalized 
way as this, but just as truly is it unsafe to declare a priori 
that he used messianic terms as finalities in his thought, or 
as concepts which must be accepted before one can assent to 
his explicit moral and religious teaching. He was possessed 
of the idea of an impending eternity/ To him life had 
meaning and the need of moral decisions was pressing 
because of the possibilities of eternal woe or weal. Escha- 
tology in his teaching is essentially a recognition of immor- 
tality. The center of his teaching is not the kingdom of 
God, with its mingled ethnic and political connotation; it is 
eternal life — the life which, because it is like God's, persists 
across death into the joy of the divine life. He could 
teach it because he possessed it. To tell one of its certainty 
and the way to possess it was in truth to preach a gospel. 
It is to this life, born of the Spirit of God, that any study of 
the messianic elements of the New Testament will continu- 
ally lead. The conception was not given by Judaism, it 
was given by the conscious experience of Jesus. Because 
he lived, his disciples were to live also. Life in the con- 
viction of an impending eternity! — that is exhortation of 
Jesus. Life in the enjoyment of eternity! — that is the 
supreme good. 

II 

But, more specifically, it can never be forgotten that 
much of the teaching of Jesus has value wholly apart from 
its connection with the messianic concept. In fact, so true 
is this statement that, as has already appeared, scholars have 

^W-ER^jj^, Beginnings of C]iristianity,\ ol. 1, chaps. 4, 5, discusses this matter 
admirably, and with substantially the same results as those presented in the present 
volume. In many points a comparison of his positions with mine shows differences, 
especially in matters of criticism, but that two studies so independent as these 
should reach results so similar gives me, at least, added confidence both in them and 
in the method employed. 



124 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

sometimes been able to convince themselves that the whole 
significance of Jesus is unmessianic. Throughout his teach- 
ing there runs the note of universality rather than of Judaism. 
That for which the religious soul turns to his teaching is his 
reference, not to the kingdom of God, but to God himself; 
not for his reference to the judgment, but for his exposition 
of the moral values and outcomes of life possessed of eternal 
capacities. 

If we ask ourselves as to the origin of these teachings, so 
independent in their content from his inherited messianism, 
our answer is not hard to find. In the first place, Jesus 
re-emphasized the noble ethics of the prophets. All through 
the history of the Jews there persisted the struggle between 
the prophet, on the one hand, and the priest and the legalist, 
on the other. Tragic as this contest sometimes became, it 
gathers an element of pathos when we recall that the prophet 
himself sometimes found it necessary to further the policy 
of those to whom he was really opposed. But of one 
thing the prophet was never ignorant : Whether he expressed 
his words in terms of prophecy, or in great principles 
embodied in the Codes of his people's lawgivers, he never 
forgot that life was something more than ceremony, and 
that duty to God was something more than the keeping of 
rules. Back of every specific act he saw a dominating 
motive, and back of every law he saw his God. It was this 
perception of the moral significance of religious faith that 
gave the great prophets their ethical passion, and it was 
this that Jesus himself appropriated. He, too, would say, 
with the writer of Deuteronomy, that the two greatest com- 
mands of the law were to love God and to love one's neighbor. 

Jesus saw also the supreme truth which lay in the prophet's 
interpretation of suffering. It was this, quite as much as his 
perception of the inevitable outcome of his struggle with the 
Pharisees, that taught him the necessity of his death. In 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 125 

the description of the Suffering Servant he saw the fate that 
would be his as the Christ. In a profound sense he fulfilled 
this prophecy. It was not merely that he expounded the 
principles of the prophets even better than they themselves; 
beyond this he saw that he who would be the truly messianic 
representative of God must fulfil those forecasts with which 
the second Isaiah so wonderfully interpreted the sufferings 
of Jehovah's Servant, but which the pride of the Jew had 
refused to see must picture his Christ. But, at the same 
time, it is noteworthy that in his teaching Jesus does not 
magnify the messianic aspect of his suffering or of the 
world suffering. The note which he strikes most insistently 
is the note of the fatherliness of God. But when Jesus 
reached this conception he had passed quite beyond the 
sphere of the messianic expectation and had entered that of 
universal religious faith. 

It is here in this conception of God as love that we see 
the basis of the ethical teaching of Jesus. It too, although 
occasionally couched in terms of messianism, is not depend- 
ent upon the concepts of messianism. The supreme duty of 
man is to believe that God is love, and to live with others as 
God himself would live. That is to say, he is to live a life 
of love. How far removed this is from the traditional 
messianism of his day will appear at once. The kingdom of 
God may or may not be considered as necessary in our 
modern religious vocabularies, but it is no mere archaeologi- 
cal concept. Deep within it is the thought that men must 
embody the love of God in their social relations. It is not 
only heaven, it is a community of "children of God" 
who are like the Master Jesus, who are brothers because 
they are like their heavenly Father. They are to be 
immortally blessed because they are possessed of that charac- 
ter, gained by the life of divine quality, which will make 
immortality blessed. Any others, consciously refusing to 



126 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

be godlike, must find immortality a curse. In a word, love 
is the social correlate of the sacrificial individualism of 
Jesus — the great dynamic element of eternal life. 

But such elements as these in the teaching of Jesus 
emphasize distinctions not merely between messianism and 
ethics, or between messianism and religion, but between 
truth and the form of truth; between the substance of 
teaching and the form which that teaching took in a given 
age. From this point of view the student of the life of 
Jesus becomes increasingly convinced that none of the 
essential teachings of Jesus are dependent upon the messi- 
anic scheme as such. Jesus does not use the idea of the 
kingdom as inclusive of all his teaching. If it be abandoned, 
his general ethical and religious teaching would not be 
injured. The idea of the kingdom is a point of contact 
between himself and his hearers. Could he, conceivably, 
have been a Greek, it must have been something different. 
His own experience of God, his own personality, led him to 
enlarge upon eternal life rather than upon the kingdom. 
But that is a term of his own personality, not of an inherited 
hope. Its content is moral, not ethnic. 

Ill 

Yet even here we have not reached the most significant 
help that lies in the messianic interpretation which Jesus 
gave himself and his life. That lies in the very word 
*' Christ," the Anointed One, in which Jesus conceived 
himself. 

When Jesus made his own inner life the object of ^atten- 
tion, and disclosed his self-conscious life, his words are 
susceptible of being ranged in two general classes. On the 
one side are those in which he speaks of his personality as 
thoroughly under the influence of the Spirit, and on the 
other are those in which he used the filial analogy to express 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 127 

his relations with God. But it would be a mistake to think 
of these two self -descriptions either as involving a double 
personality, or in fact as expressive of any radical difference. 
To think of God as Father was at bottom no more different 
from thinking of himself as having the Spirit of God than 
to think of himself as Son of man was different from think- 
ing of himself as Christ. The distinction between the two 
terms is rather one of point of view. The very account 
which describes the coming of the Spirit upon him also 
describes the new experience as one of sonship. 

The nearest analogy which we have to the experience of 
Jesus is that of the prophet, but the psychological formula to 
describe his and the prophetic experience is not the same. 
Jesus was conscious, not of a momentary indwelling of the 
Spirit,^ but of a personality constantly and exceptionally and 
supremely filled with the divine personality — of a divine 
incarnation. Otherwise he would not have conceived of 
himself as the Christ. 

Again, however, a careful distinction is necessary. Such 
a consciousness of himself as Messiah and of the significance 
of his own personality would be impossible without experi- 
ences which antedated the baptism. Whatever new experience 
of God and new perception of duty may have come to him 
by the Jordan must have been conditioned by his previous 
life. It is, of course, possible, with some of the Docetic 
teachers, to hold that there was such an incarnation of the 
Spirit of God at that time as would have been unconditioned 
by any previous character or capacity of his personality ; but 
such a position is unlikely on a priori grounds, as well as 
opposed to such information as we have as to the early life 
of Jesus. The words uttered by him as a boy in the temple 
certainly do not refer to his parentage. Otherwise his 
father and mother could not have failed to understand him. 

1 Cf. John 1 : 32, 34. So, too, J. Weiss, Reich Gottes^, p. 155. 



128 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Wholly apart, therefore, from the question as to the his- 
toricity of the infancy sections of Matthew and Luke, we 
are forced to believe that by these words Jesus intended to 
express his developing consciousness of God in his own life. 
It would in very truth be contrary to all the data and 
probabilities of psychology to find such a supreme experi- 
ence as that of the baptism unconditioned by previous states 
of personality. Just what the difference was between the 
state of soul of which Jesus was conscious before his bap- 
tism, and that of which he was conscious after his baptism, 
it would be impossible to state with accuracy, but one thing 
is clear: the personality of Jesus made the new self- 
consciousness possible. Thereafter he believed himself to 
be so great and so possessed of God as to be absolutely and 
unquestionably convinced that all the glories of the eschato- 
logical kingdom were to be secondary to his own position as 
its king. A greater thought than this probably never 
entered a man's mind and left it sane. That Jesus should 
have believed such a future should be his, is a most impor- 
tant datum for assisting us to judge his own self -estimate. 
From the day of his baptism onward this conviction set 
Jesus in a different class from that to which other men 
belonged. Never for a moment does he consider himself as 
a mere climax of humanity. In his experiences, in his duties, 
and, most of all, in his consciousness of his own superhuman 
self he puts himself over against humanity as its divine 
Master. Otherwise he would not have been the Christ. 

To come to a consideration of his self -consciousness from 
this point of view is to find one's self convinced anew that 
the real meaning of Jesus in history is not in the ascription 
to him of a messianic future on the part of his followers, but 
rather in a personality which, when fully read by him- 
self, compelled him to regard himself as the one destined to 
undertake and enjoy a messianic future. Even though it 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 129 

should bo shown that such an expectation was historically to 
be disappointed, the greatness of the personality which com- 
pelled itself to forecast its future in such ultimate concep- 
tions is indisputable. 

Almost unexpectedly eschatology is thus seen to be of the 
utmost interpretative importance. It would not have been 
such an extraordinary thing to have regarded one's self as 
Christ, if that had meant simply to teach men about God, to 
do good, and to organize a great movement of social regen- 
eration which sooner or later should transform humanity. 
But consider only what it must have meant for one so emi- 
nently sane as Jesus to attach to himself the eschatological 
concept. He was doing nothing that the eschatological 
Christ was expected to perform. The judgment throne was 
not set; the dead were not raised; the wicked were not 
being thrust down to hell ; the sun and moon and stars were 
not being shaken from their places ; the earth was not being 
renewed. Why did he forecast his future as involving such 
expectations ? The answer is close at hand. It was because 
he saw himself so supreme that he was forced to use the 
extremest valuations of his day and people to express his 
own self -consciousness. He could not interpret himself as a 
reformer, as a prophet, as Elijah. He was the Christ. Had 
such an interpretation been forced upon him, had others 
believed that he was doing messianic work, the situation 
would be radically different. As it was, it is a tribute to 
something in his personality that compelled him to regard 
himself as Christ. And that element was God. The coming 
of God into a man's life was implied in the very word, 
"Christ." It is that which the apostles saw and that which 
Jesus himself saw. He regarded himself as the Christ — 
the Anointed of God — because he was conscious of God in 
his personality. What "unction" was in Semitic thought, 
incarnation was in Greek thought. Jesus believed that he 



130 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

was Christ because he knew that when he read his own per- 
sonality he read God. As this deep consciousness had led 
him to abandon certain elements of pharisaic messianism, 
and to modify others, so, too, did it become a contribution 
to religion wholly independent of the self-appellation with 
which Jesus was constrained to express it. It is the per- 
sonality of the historical Jesus, not a descriptive title, that 
is God's best revelation to men. In very truth, in him was 
life that was to be the light of men. 

Similarly in the case of the resurrection. "While it is 
true that men believed Jesus to be the Christ before they 
believed that he had been raised from the dead, it is 
true that they believed he was raised from the dead because 
he was the Christ. Clearly, the fact that he was raised from 
the dead did not make Jesus the Christ; but it showed him 
to be such. It is on the basis of this fact that men attached 
to him the messianic conception. As has already appeared, 
there was absolutely nothing in the conception of messiahship 
which would have involved the belief that the Messiah should 
die and be raised from the dead. On the contrary, there 
was everything in the concept to argue the opposite con- 
clusion. It was this which Peter evidently had in mind at 
Csesarea Philippi: the Christ could not die. Account for 
the belief of the disciples in Jesus' resurrection as one will, 
it is the reverse of any genuine historical method to hold 
that the belief was derived from a belief in his messiahship. 

It is well to state this fact distinctly. The belief that 
Jesus had been raised from the dead was the basis of a 
messianic interpretation, not the result of that interpreta- 
tion. If one, therefore, is convinced that this belief of the 
apostles was well grounded, and that Jesus actually did 
manifest himself in some objective sense to the disciples, it 
is impossible to deny that in this fact the Christian church 
has a supreme historical datum wholly distinct from the 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 131 

messianic concept. The death of Christ might be used by 
the Jews to argue that Jesus was the Christ; for the man 
who does not care to reach that particular conclusion it 
stands equally significant as a fact in the history of the race, 
a testimony to the superhuman personality of the historical 
Jesus. It matters not in what schematic relation it is 
placed; whether it be systematized as an element in the 
messianic expectation, or in some scientific hypothesis like 
that of evolution. The fact of the resurrection itself is 
independent of any interpretation and stands out ready for 
correlation with whatever other facts one may care to join it. 
Whether or not one accept Jesus as the Christ of Jewish 
hopes, he is the Risen One. 

IV 

Thus we come in sight of the permanent, as distinct from 
the interpretative, elements in the story of Jesus. There 
are those fundamental human needs and hopes which messi- 
anism in itself expressed, and far beyond them is that 
personality of Jesus which was the test of truth in his own 
experience and lies back of his teaching, making him more 
than human teachers. When we combine these two ele- 
ments, we have the permanent element of the gospels. Once 
given such facts, and it is easy to systematize them. They 
have but to be brought into correlation with any other group 
of facts to have their value appear. As we shall see, that is 
the use made of them by the apostles. By their aid the 
early church solved the theological and philosophical diffi- 
culties of its own age. So to use them is to put them to 
their true purpose. The life and resurrection and teaching 
of Jesus were not intended to be sources of mystery to the 
world. In such a case the gospel would be far enough from 
good news. They were rather intended to serve as a means 
by which the man who makes them supreme in his own con- 



132 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

duct may better understand the world in which he is, better 
trust the forgiving grace of God, better perceive the life he 
ought to live, and be more fully assured of the life that may 
hereafter be his. 

It is here, far above traditional messianism, that we reach 
our final word concerning Jesus and see most clearly his 
significance. Jesus, as all will admit, was something more 
than a teacher; he was a life, and the life was the light of 
man. His teachings are the expositions of this life; the 
ideal which he set forth as the divine way of living he him- 
self first lived. To think of him as in any way disingenuous 
is impossible. If ever a man was transparently honest, it 
was he. In this assurance lies the great authority which we 
attribute to his teaching. He was not a theorist. He set 
forth his own inner life in the words which he bade other 
men to believe. This life he does not obtrusively set forth 
as messianic, but rather as that of the Son of God, the one 
in most perfect harmony with the divine soul, the one in 
whom the divine Spirit himself was incarnate. It was his 
inner life that forced upon him the messianic interpretation. 
It was his inner life that he formulated in his teachings. It 
is his personality, his vocalization of his self-conscious life 
with God, his triumph over death, that survive when all 
archseological concepts are removed. Jesus taught how one 
should live to insure the kingdom which the Jew expected 
and he himself so lived. But this way of living — this life 
of faith and love and sacrifice — remains imperative as a 
moral ideal, whether or not one correlates it with the Jewish 
pictures with which it was correlated by him as he spoke to 
Jews. He taught and demonstrated the certainty of the 
immortality, of the man who possessed his sort of life. The 
truth of such teaching lies, not in the fact that he described 
it in terms of messianic hope, but in the historical fact of 
his own resurrection. Cast these facts and these teachings 



Elements in Messianism of Jesus 133 

born of experience in any vocabulary and they are true. 

The criterion by which to judge between the interpreta- 
tive and the permanent elements in the words of Jesus is, 
in a word, Jesus himself. Such inherited thought employed 
by him as cannot be demonstrated true by his personality 
may be assumed as pedagogic and economic — the means by 
which he expressed to his own age the truth born of his 
own conscious experience. 

In conclusion: On the basis of Jesus' own self -estimate 
and the results of a reverent criticism, a man may believe in 
him as the incarnation of God, as the revealer of a forgiving 
Grod, as the type and teacher of the perfect human life, as 
the Eisen One who brought life and incorruption to light, 
without necessarily committing himself to a formal accept- 
ance of his strictly messianic interpretation. The interpre- 
tation was born of Judaism and will be dynamic only as one 
assents to Judaistic preconceptions. The life will ever be 
the light of men. 



PAKT III 
THE MESSIANISM OF THE APOSTLES 



CHAPTER I 
THE MESSIANISM OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 

The disciples wlio composed the original church at 
Jerusalem were those who had been associated with Jesus. 
Most of them were Galileans, and farthest possible removed 
from the academic discussions of the Sanhedrin. To them 
Jesus was not a doctrine, but a real person. Their faith in 
him was the product of their association with him — in no 
way was systematized into a theology. He was the Christ 
— of this they were certain from their daily contact with his 
supreme personality and from his resurrection. Their hopes 
were conditioned by the awfulness of the future which his 
return promised, and their daily life was full of the joy 
resulting from a conviction that they were to share in the 
glories of an eternity he in his kingdom would inaugurate. 
He was to them more than a teacher of religion, or the 
founder of a new religion. He had stirred their deepest 
souls by his constant insistence upon preparation for the 
impending eternity, and they were living in daily expectation 
that this eternity would break in upon them. Already they 
were living the same eternal life he had lived in humiliation 
and was living in glory. Property might well be sacrificed to 
alleviate the poverty of brethren during the brief period of 
waiting for his return to usher in that eternity, while the 
highest honor that could come to them was to be considered 
worthy of suffering for acknowledging belief in his messianic 
dignity.' 

Four literary sources furnish us material for portraying 
the faith and hope of this group of Christians — the book 

1 Acts 3 : 44, 45 ; c/. 4 : 32-35 ; 5 : 41. 

137 



138 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

of Acts, the epistles of James and Peter, and the Revelation 
of John. With the exception of certain of the material of 
Acts, none of these literary survivals dates from the church 
at Jerusalem, but all alike furnish data for reconstructing 
the thought of those Christians who were not directly under 
the influence of Paul, and who preserved that general mes- 
sianic point of view and habit of mind which the Apostle 
to the Grentiles was so characteristically to preserve, modify, 
and surpass. 

I 

The question as to the sources and authorship of the 
earlier chapters of the book of Acts is admittedly one of the 
most perplexing of all the critical questions concerning New 
Testament criticism. On the one hand are those who hold 
that these chapters are hardly more than a collection of late 
legends, which have been roughly grouped together and 
edited in the interest of a compromise between the Jewish 
and the Pauline wings of the early church.^ In whatever 
form this view takes, whether or not it recognizes the 
possibility that original trustworthy records and recollec- 
tions of the Jerusalem church have been preserved along 
with less trustworthy material, in general it discredits the 
historical value of the early portions of the book. To 
those who, on the contrary, hold that the book is the 
unedited, or but slightly edited, work of Luke, the first 
twelve chapters are of unquestioned value. On a priori 
ground it might seem that a mediate position which recog- 
nizes the authenticity of certain sources and certain elements 

1 Baur and the Tiibingen school (especially Zeller) and the tangential Dutch 
school headed by Van Manen, represent this in its most elaborate form. The 
Tubingen scholars' theory of early church history compelled them to regard the book 
as a fictitious "tendency " writing seeking to further the interests of a nascent Catholi- 
cism. Harnack and WeizsScker represent something of a mediating view between 
this and that of tradition. Cf. Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, p. 56, and 
Weizsackee, Apostolic Age, passim. The traditional view is argued vigorously by 
Salmon, Introduction to the New Testament, and Knowling, in Expositor's Greek 
Ttstament. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 139 

in the account, but allows also for a considerable redaction, 
would be thoroughly tenable. Such a position is, in my 
opinion, justified by a study of the literary character and the 
contents of the volume. That this early material has been 
edited at a time considerably later than the events narrated 
can be shown with all but certainty by internal evidence, 
but such a position is far removed from that which would 
insist that these early chapters are without historical value. 
The actual inconsistencies which they present with Pauline 
letters can either be resolved, or without serious difficulty be 
laid at the door of some of the late redactors. The general 
line of preaching, at all events, bespeaks a condition which, 
on the one hand, would be impossible after the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and, on the other, cannot be held to have been 
suggested by the conditions in the churches of the gentile 
world with which the editor was evidently associated.^ The 
duplication of accounts in these early chapters also argues 
the originality of the substance of their accounts. There 
is certainly no more difficulty in recognizing a double group 
of sources in Acts than there is in recognizing the same 
phenomenon in Luke — a work admittedly from the same 
hand. And it is steadily growing apparent that philological 
argument and literary analysis have been pushed too far. 
A broad historical treatment certainly gives more tenable, as 
well as more conservative, results. 

If it were not that such an argument would be obviously 
begging the question, appeal might here be made especially 
to the general messianic concept ascribed to the apostles and 
the primitive church of Jerusalem. Yet, if such views as 
are ascribed to the primitive Jerusalem community exhibit 
features which we should expect from Jews under the influ- 
ence of apocalyptic messianism, the conclusion is hard to 
avoid that they must have been very early. Such a con- 

1 This is, after all, the great objection to the position of Van Manen. 



140 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

elusion would only be strengthened if it should be shown that 
such a messianic concept had been modified by an editor or 
editors in the interest of ecclesiastical peace. Critical pro- 
cesses must always, to a considerable extent, approach the 
petitio principii, and can escape the danger only when, as in 
the case of Acts, a thorough comparison of the contents of 
a document with those of clearly established later and earlier 
writings enables us to trace tendencies, and so to establish 
the document under consideration in a probable historical 
perspective. In the case of Acts, such a comparison supplies 
sufficient evidence to warrant us in taking its early chapters 
and the general contents of its speeches at their face value, 
in so far as they purport to record the opinions of the 
Jerusalem church before the period of expansion. Thus a 
study of the messianic concept therein contained can be 
made independently of any question as to the details of 
authorship. 

By far the largest part of the material in Acts represent- 
ing the beliefs of the primitive church of Jerusalem is to be 
found in speeches attributed to Peter. While recent criti- 
cism has urged the composite character of these speeches, its 
results, if substantiated, would not materially affect the 
results which a non-analytical study of them produces. No 
one would claim that they are verbatim reports of the 
addresses of the apostle ; but, on the other hand, the histori- 
cal student, rather than the devotee to analytical criticism, 
cannot fail to see in their substance precisely the sort of 
teaching to be expected of a group of Jewish messianists 
who believed their hopes were about to be realized, and who 
had not been forced to consider the problems arising from 
the conversion of non- Jewish peoples. However clearly we 
may discover in them Judean and Pauline documents, the 
distinction between the two sets of material does not lie in 
the region of the messianic hope so much as in the general 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 141 

attitude of the various authors to gentile converts and a 
universal Christianity.^ The same messianic hopes are in 
both sets of documents. 

All the evidence at our disposal makes it clear that the 
sympathies of the primitive church were not with Zealotism. 
There is nowhere in the entire literature of primitive or 
Pauline Christianity any appeal for political action.^ Jesus, 
it is true, had been executed as a political agitator, but his 
followers knew better than to see in his career anything to 
justify such a charge. In their own lives they were as far as 
possible removed from anything like revolution, either social 
or political. In their common life they held their meetings 
in private houses^ and daily went to the temple to pray.* 
There is every indication that they regarded themselves as 
under obligation to maintain the Jewish law as conscien- 
tiously as before their association with Jesus. ^ In a word, they 
were Jews who believed that the Christ had appeared in the 
person of Jesus, and would again appear to undertake his 
messianic work. There is not the slightest suggestion that 
this faith in any way affected their devotion to their tradi- 
tional religion, or led them to feel that the gentile world could 
share in the blessings of the messianic kingdom except by 
its members becoming proselytes. 

How thoroughly these early Christians were Jewish mes- 
sianists appears when we place the scheme of the pharisaic 
messianism already formulated over against the too scant 
records of the faith of the primitive church. 

1, Peter, it is true, does not mention distinctly the two 
ages, but the distinction is clearly implied by his references 

1 For various analyses see Spitta, Die Apostelgeschichte, ihre Quellen, etc. ; 
Clemen, Die Chronologie der Paulinischen Brief e; Jungst, Die Quellen der Apos- 
telgeschichte; HiLGENFELD, in Zeltschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1895-96; 
J. Weiss, Die Apostelgeschichte. 

2 On the contrary, cf. Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13, 17. 
3Acts 1:13; 12:12. ^Acts 2:46; 3:1. 

^This appears clearly in the great controversy from which Galatians sprang. 



142 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

to the fact that his generation lived in "the last days,"^ 
that is to say, those just preceding the coming of Christ. It 
argues the end of one epoch, while the approaching judg- 
ment argued just as strongly the approach of another — the 
truly messianic. 

2. There is no express reference to the evil age being 
under the control of Satan in sayings attributed to the Jeru- 
salem church in Acts.^ That the primitive Christians believed 
it to be true, however, is beyond question.^ 

3. It goes without saying that the first Christians believed 
that the messianic age was to be introduced by the return of 
Jesus. There is no evidence that they conceived that they 
themselves had anything to do with its coming, except to 
prepare themselves and others for it.* They believed that it 
would come soon, since Jesus was already in possession of 
messianic authority in heaven — a conclusion drawn from the 
gift of the Spirit.^ A similar argument is to be seen in the 
"name," belief in which led to cures.^ 

4. The judgment was central in the entire thought of the 
primitive Christian church. It was the expectation of that 
dreadful day to which Peter appealed at Pentecost.' Jesus 
whom the Jews had killed was the Christ whose enemies 
were to be put under his feet. Naturally his auditors were 
terrified and, reverting to the passage from Joel (3:22-2S)'"X" ^^ 
just quoted by Peter, asked what they might do to be saved. ^ 
This is the first appearance of the concept of "salvation,"^ and 

1 Acts 2:14-21. The passage here used is from Joel-3:l-5. The term of vs. 17, e;' 
Tats i7jaepais ecrxarat?, is the apostolic substitute for jaera ravra of the LXX. The ori- 
gin of the term is doubtless Mic. 4 : 1, which is clearly messianic. Cf. Mic. 2 : 10 ; 3 : 1 ; 
Jas. 5:3;Heb. 1:1. 

2 This statement needs modification if Acts 5:3 be considered as strictly 
historical. 

3 Cf. the general scheme of Revelation of John and the entire thought of Paul. 

4 Acts 3 : 19-21. 5 Acts 2 : 33 ; 5 : 30-33. 

6 Acts 2 ; 38 ; 3 : 6, 16 ; 4 : 10, and often. 7 Acts 2 : 19-21, 35. See also 4 : 8-12 ; 10 : 42. 
8 Acts 3 : 37 ; cf. vs. 40. 9 Acts 2 : 21 ; 4 : 12 ; 13 : 26. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 143 

it is worth noticing that it is correlated with the forgiveness 
of sins, and that in turn is correlated with escaping the pun- 
ishment of the judgment. The believer in Jesus as Christ 
was to be saved from an evil generation's punishment/ The 
essential identity of this belief with the alleged exclusively 
Pauline doctrine of justification by faith is evident.^ This 
was only the negative side of the matter, to be complemented 
by that which was the current belief of the early church, viz., 
salvation was release from death and entrance into the mes- 
sianic kingdom. But of this the records of Acts do not pre- 
cisely speak. ^ As a precondition of obtaining such salvation 
there were necessary repentance, and faith (indicated by 
baptism) in Jesus as the Christ. Evidence of such acquittal 
would be seen in the gift of the Spirit.* 

5. A party in the primitive church at Jerusalem clearly 
believed^ that entrance into the coming kingdom — that is 
salvation — was to be for Jews only.^ That this party repre- 
sented the entire body of Jerusalem Christians is probable, 
although doubtless^ they were more zealous in propagating 
their belief than other members of the church. The fact that 
"those from James" should have made Peter and Barnabas 
unwilling to continue eating with the gentiles at Antioch,* 
as well as Paul's reference to other matters in connection with 
Judaistic controversy, argue strongly that the prevailing sen- 
timent of the Jerusalem church was pharisaic. This conclu- 
sion is guaranteed by the history of the church. By the 

1 Acts 2 : 40. 

2 That the primitive church held to this doctrine is expressly stated by Paul, 
Gal. 2:14-16. 

SActs 2:21; 4:12; 13:26. See Pss. iSoL, 10:9; 12:7; Lk. 1:69, 71,77; Acts 4:22; 13:26. 

4 See page 142, note 9. 

6 Acts 15 : 1. Doubtless this is the same party as oi e<c TreptTOjaijs of Gal. 2 : 12. 

6 C/. Acts 1:3; 2:39. 

7 Cf. 01 ciTrb 'IaKU)^ou ; Gal. 2:12. Yet the account of Acts, chap. 15, especially vs. 5, 
supports the view that the Jerusalem church vpas divided between the extreme and 
the moderate Jewish party. 

8 Gal. 2:12. 



144 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

time of Paul's visit to Jerusalem^ the Christian community 
there numbered thousands of Jews, "all zealous for the law." 
What we know from Hegesippus concerning the punctilious 
righteousness of James is of the same tenor.^ There is no 
reason for doubting that this ethnic conviction included most 
of the old expectations of the subjugation of the gentile 
world to the regenerate and glorified Jewish state.^ 

6. The resurrection of Jesus is the central argument in 
the apostolic preaching. Because of it Jesus was seen to be 
the Messiah. However, in the speeches of Peter there is no 
clear reference to the resurrection of the believer. At the 
same time it would be impossible to doubt that the primitive 
church held the resurrection to be one of its fundamental 
hopes. It was involved in the idea of salvation. 

7. As regards the personal Messiah there is, of course, 
no question that the early church believed that Jesus was 
the Christ who had returned to heaven, whence he would 
come to introduce the new age and the new kingdom. This 
was the very core of the entire Christian movement.* 

Jesus was assuredly the Christ, for he fufilled newly dis- 
covered messianic prophecies by his death and resurrection; 
but he is never spoken of as having performed a truly mes- 
sianic act. His kingdom was to appear only when he him- 
self reappeared. And that was to be soon.^ 

It is commonly said that Jesus was not the sort of Christ 
that the Jews of his day expected, and if one thinks only of 

1 Acts 21 : 20 : c/. 15 : 5. 2 Eusebius, His. Ecc, 2 : 23. 

3 See further in the discussion of Revelation. An interesting commentary on this 
attitude of the mind is to'be seen in the words of Peter, both in his vision on the 
housetop and in his address to Cornelius, Acts 10:9-16, 28. 

4j;,g., Acts 5:42. 

5 The ground for this statement lies not in specific texts, but in the general 
expectation as seen both in the synoptic gospels, the Revelation of John, and in 
Pauline thought. Indeed all apocalyptic looked to a speedily approaching relief. 
What force would the appeals of primitive Christianity have bad if they had been 
understood to refer to an event to come in the indefinite future — say within ten 
thousand years? Cf. 2 Pet. 3 : 1-10. See also Apoc. Baruch, 20 : 6. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 145 

his brief career as teacher and philanthropist, such a view is 
of course true. No orthodox Jew of his day or of any day 
could for a moment admit that his historical career in any 
degree squared with the messianic ideal. That Jesus him- 
self recognized this fact is equally clear from all of his few 
references to his conception of a truly messianic work. If, 
however, one looks to the apostolic conception of messiah- 
ship, another aspect of the matter at once appears. In the 
estimation of the Twelve, Jesus was the Messiah, but his 
career was prospective. His messianic life of humility was 
not a part of his messianic work. That lay still in the 
future. And when they and Paul undertook to picture what 
this work and what he himself was to be, they appropriated 
the apocalyptic hopes of the day. They did not believe he 
was to be a Zealot Christ, but, with certain modifications, 
they did believe he was to be the Pharisee Christ. 

This consideration will go far to convince one of the 
error of those who hold that the kingdom of God plays no 
important role in apostolic Christianity; that all matters 
eschatological were no more to the primitive church and 
Paul and the first Fathers than they are to a modern treatise 
upon systematic theology. Such a view both lacks histori- 
cal perspective and is at variance with the entire thought 
of the literature of apostolic Christianity. The very name 
of the new movement, C/iWs^anity, would suggest the con- 
trary opinion. So far from the eschatological kingdom of 
God being a secondary element in the early church, it is its 
great conditioning belief.^ 

The preaching of the first evangelists was not a call to 
ethical ideals or an argument as to certain truths. Rather it 
was the proclamation of a message. They told of the near- 
ness of the kingdom of God and of a preliminary earthly 

iSo Haenack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, p. 58 : "The Gospel entered the world 
as an apocalyptical eschatological message, apocalyptical and eschatological not 
only in its form, but also in its content." 



146 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

appearance of the coming Christ.^ To them this pre- 
liminary career had been that of "the prophet"^ who had 
attained his superiority by the coming of God's spirit upon 
him. This is the earliest Christology. There is in it no 
reference to a miraculous birth or to a messianic pre-exist- 
ence. Jesus was the Anointed.^ And the decisive proof of 
this messiahship was the resurrection/ The coming of the 
Spirit upon his followers was evidence that messianic 
authority was already his. 

It is at this point that we reach the first of new and 
modifying elements in the new messianism. The Jews had 
not expected that the Spirit of God would come upon all 
flesh in the messianic days.^ The Messiah would, of course, 
be anointed of God,^ but the members of the kingdom were 
promised no such experience. The entire movement of 
John and Jesus, however, evidently included the belief that 
the followers of the Anointed were also to be anointed. 
The origin of this hope cannot be discovered in Jewish 
literature. John the Baptist is the first reported to have 
given it utterance,^ but he refers to it as a matter of current 

1 See the admirable discussion by Weiss, Biblical Theology, Vol. I, p. 173. 

2Acts3:22; 7:36; 10:36-38. C/. Isa. 42:1; 61:1; 52:7. 3 Acts 10 : 36-38. 

* Acts 2 : 25-31. It is interesting to see liow readily the early Christian apologetic 
used new interpretations of the Old Testament gained by a knowledge of the his- 
torical Jesus. 

5 See Gloel, Der heilige Geist, pp. 91-136. 

^Pss. Sol., 17:42; cf. 18:8; Eth. Enoch, 49:3: of. 61:7, 11. Angels also are under 
the influence of the Spirit according to 68:2. According to Wis., 1:5, 6, the holy 
spirit of instruction will come and impart wisdom to those who are pure in thought 
and deed. Philo treats the matter somewhat more elaborately. Moses (Decalog., 33), 
the prophets {Quis. Rer. Div. Her., 53), Abraham {Nobil., 5), all had the spirit of God 
in exceptional degree. See Schoemaker, "The Use of H^T and of nvevfj.a,'''' Jour. 
Bib. Lit., 1904, 13-67. Wood, The Spirit of God in Bib. Lit., pp. 64, 65, gives Test. XII, 
Pat. Levi 18, Judah 24, but these show Christian influence. 

7 Mark 1:8; John 1 : 33. Reference ought perhaps here to be made to Eth. Enoch, 
90:38, when the sheep (the Pious) are to become white oxen like the white bull (the 
Messiah). From this it might be possible to argue that the author believed that all 
men were to be anointed. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 147 

expectation.^ Nor would it be in the least surprising if 
such should have been the case. But in such an event 
current expectation would have been nothing else than 
the speech of Peter explains — an explanation of an expe- 
rience. 

That this new experience was an actual speaking in 
foreign tongues most critical scholars have come to question,^ 
the interpretation to that effect being ascribed to the editor 
of Acts, who wrote after the phenomena of "tongues" had 
ceased to be common in the Christian churches. Yet such 
a position does not invalidate the report that the early 
disciples experienced a religious ecstasy which took some 
strange form, and was to be often repeated in the Christian 
communities both in Judea and throughout the Roman 
empire. Later a sharp distinction came to be drawn between 
such spectacular manifestations of religious enthusiasm and 
the normal influence of the divine life. It is enough now 
to note carefully that the acceptance of Jesus as Christ did 
lead to new experience. And it was the Spirit that was 
really supreme in the church. The apostles' authority was 
from him, and they it was who brought to others the same 
gift. It was the Spirit who forced the Jerusalem-centered 
church out into the world. Account for it as one may, the 
historic fact is indubitable that with the death of Jesus 
there sprang up innumerable men of the old prophetic 
spirit. God was again in vital union with his creatures. 
The neutralizing influence of Pharisaism was outflanked. 
Apostles were reinforced by the Seven Hellenists with 
Stephen and Philip at their head. Prophets like Agabus 

1 Edbesheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah^ Vol. II, p. 734, says that Joel 
2:28 is explained by the Midrashim as "referring to the latter days when all Israel 
will be prophets." But such references as he gives are all post-Christian and very 
likely reflect the effect of the Christian polemics. In general see Wood, The Spirit 
of God in Bib. Lit., pp. 151-97. 

2 An exception should be noted in the case of Weight, Some New Testament 
Problems. See also Chase, Hulsean Lectures, and Babtlett, Acts (Century Bible). 



148 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

again began to utter their message. The humblest believer 
had his particular "charism." The early church was full 
of ebullient life. For men were coming straight to God. 
Eternal life was being lived. Grant that the Christ never 
came as the primitive Christians expected he would come — 
God came. 

A second modification that stands out clearly in the 
messianic faith of the Jerusalem church is the emphasis laid 
upon the death of Jesus the Christ. Throughout the 
association of the Twelve with Jesus they had been quite 
incapable of grasping the possibility of any such catastrophe 
coming to one whom they believed to be the Christ of their 
hopes. ^ It certainly was the opposite of their Jewish hope. 
In the speeches of Peter, however, this death is argued to 
be a necessary part of the divine plan of the messianic 
revelation,^ foretold by the prophets and the occasion of the 
exposition of divine power in the resurrection. At last 
they saw the truth in the teaching of Jesus they had rejected 
during his life. 

There is, however, in the Petrine section of the Acts no 
distinct correlation of this death of Christ with the forgiveness 
of sins — a fact to be borne in mind when formulating the 
New Testament doctrine of the atonement. Men were to be 
saved by repenting and believing on Jesus ^ as Christ. They 
were not urged to accept any basis for the forgiveness of 
their sins which such faith and salvation involved. At the 
same time, caution should be exercised in arguing that this 
silence of the Petrine section of the Acts constitutes a posi- 
tive denial that the early church regarded the death of Christ 
as having any relation to the forgiveness of sins. Paul* 
expressly states that he "received" the teaching that "Christ 

1 Mark 9 : 9, 10, 30-32 ; 10 : 32-34 ; Matt. 16 : 21-23 ; Luke 24 : 13-27. 

2Acts 2:22,23; 3:18; 4:27,28. 

SActs 3:19; 10:43. 4 1 Cor. 15:3. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 149 

died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." Unless we 
hold this to be a Pauline interpretative statement of facts, 
this certainly implies that the early apostles held to some- 
thing closely akin to the late belief of a vicarious death. 
The same conclusion is in some degree involved in Philip's 
indentification of Jesus as the suffering Servant of Isaiah.^ 
Yet, had it not been for Pauline thought, it is hardly possible 
that Christianity would ever have included any distinct doc- 
trine of the substitutionary death of Jesus. ^ Justification 
by faith was indeed distinctly a tenet of the Jerusalem 
community (although not carried to its logical conclusions) 
but the Atonement as a doctrine is the gift of Paul. 

One point further demands attention. Did Peter expect 
that the death of Christ, or some other aspect of his 
messianic work, would guarantee the ultimate participation 
of all men in the messianic salvation ? This has been 
argued strenuously from the fact that he said that it was 
necessary for heaven to receive the Christ Jesus until the 
times of the restoration of all things of which God spoke 
through the prophets.^ But obviously the reference here 
is to the messianic glories which are to be established in the 
future, and it would be natural to interpret it, from that 
point of view, as involving only such an extension of the 
messianic joys as would be conditioned by the whole scheme 
of messianism. This is substantiated by the fact that Peter 
urged his hearers to repent. If he were thinking about 
universal salvation, it is difficult to see the force of this 
appeal. Further, the reference is very probably to the 
prophetic picture of the restored Israel found in Mic. 4:5, 6; 
and finally there is nothing in the word aTroKardaTao-L^ to 

1 Acts 8: 35. In so far as the Gospel of Matthew reflects the belief of the Jeru- 
salem community it evidences the same probability. 

2Dennet, Death of Christ, pp. 76-91, makes the best possible statement of the 
case, but fails to establish clearly any position in advance of that stated above. 
For complete treatment see Kahlee, Zur Lehre der VersQhnung. 

3Acts3:19. 21. 



150 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

argue that the reference is to the fate of individuals. It is 
rather an echo of the general belief that God's reign, which 
was once supreme, and has been to some extent threatened 
by the power of Satan, was to be re-established, and in the 
glorious messianic kingdom. The Fall was to be overcome 
by the Restoration. 

II 

Only one of the two epistles bearing the name of Peter 
need concern us here. 2 Peter is all but unanimously held 
to belong to the second century and to be pseudonymous.^ 
Concerning 1 Peter there are also many doubts, but there is 
no compelling reason for rejecting it as, in the main at least, 
the genuine work of the apostle. Apart from the admitted 
difficulties of date suggested by chap. 4, the chief ground 
upon which late authorship is built is its affinity with Paul- 
inism. Jtilicher^ and Harnack^ put the argument against 
its authenticity strongly and about to this effect: While the 
epistle contains nothing that is un-Pauline, it is thoroughly 
filled with the Pauline spirit and uses Pauline formulas. 
And to this may be added the general habit of the second 
century to produce a Petrine literature.* Yet external 
evidence in its favor is by no means weak.^ So far as 
Paulinism is concerned, it is limited almost entirely to 
parallelisms between it and Romans and Ephesians. Some 

iFor summary of arguments in this case see JtJLiCHER, Einleitung; Bacon, 
Introduction; and the articles in Encyclopc&dia Biblica, and Hastings, Dictionary 
of the Bible. 

^Einleitung, p. 133. 3 Chronologie, pp. 451 S. 

*Thus we know of a Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Peter, the Teaching of Peter, 
the Preaching of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, and at least three epistles of Peter. 

5 Especially note the parallelisms between it and 1 Clement. The most important 
are given in Bacon, Introduction, p. 151, note. The epistle was probably used by 
Polycarp and Papias. If it be felt that the fisherman apostle could not have written 
such good Greek as the letter contains, recourse may be had, with Bacon, to the 
hypothesis of some amanuensis, possibly Silvanus. But a study of the very numer- 
ous participial constructions of the epistle wiU certainly suggest caution in too 
liberal praise of its literary form. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 151 

degree of dependence must certainly be admitted/ It is hard 
to see, however, why this should necessarily argue against 
Petrine authorship. Intercourse between Paul and Peter is 
certainly recognized in the New Testament,^ and it is hardly 
open to question that Paul must have influenced his compan- 
ion. Nor is there anything improbable in the supposition that 
the letter of Paul to the Romans, or, for that matter, to the 
Asiatic churches, was known to Peter. 

If it be further urged that there is nothing un-Pauline 
in the letter, it can be replied that our discussion has shown 
that the distinction between Paulinism and primitive Chris- 
tianity is by no means as sharp as has been sometimes 
urged. Both alike include, with varying distinctness, the 
fundamental doctrines which result from the attachment of 
the messianic dignity to Jesus. The peculiarity of Paulin- 
ism was not its insistence upon justification by faith, but its 
insistence that such justification was not limited to those 
who observed Mosaism. Peter, as is indicated not only by 
Acts, but by church traditions, had himself removed this 
limitation and so far stood on Pauline ground. 

These considerations make it clear that, although we cannot 
safely ascribe to primitive Christianity all the doctrines 
which lie in 1 Peter,^ a summary of the positions taken in 
the epistle will show that it, like primitive Christianity, 
reproduces pharisaic messianism. 

1. With Peter as with pharisaic messianism there were two 
ages. The end of the times was already come,* and a new 
age — the last time^ — was yet to come. The end of all 
things was at hand.^ 

2. While there is no mention of the existence of the 

1 So Sanday and Headlam, Romans, Ixxiv f . 

2 Gal. 1 : 18 ; 2 : 9-14. Acts, chap. 15, unless it be rejected completely, certainly con- 
tains evidence of an interplay of apostolic thought in line with the Galatian passage. 

3 See the somewhat extreme statement of this view in Stetens, Theology of the 
New Testament, where the question of the date of the epistle is not fully considered. 

41 Pet. 1:19, 20; Mic. 4:1; Isa. 2:2. siPet. 1:5-7. eiPet. 4:7. 



152 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

kingdom of Satan, the essential idea involved in that belief 
is recognized in ascribing to Satan the causes of persecution.^ 

3. The kingdom was to be established by the Christ.^ 
It was to include certain of the dead,^ and was to be estab- 
lished at the revelation of the Christ in glory/ All of these 
forecasts imply a period of struggle which was involved in all 
expectations of the establishment of the messianic kingdom. 
The idea of an evolving kingdom is foreign to the entire 
outlook of the epistle. Its coming was to be catastrophic. 

4. The judgment is both referred to specifically and 
implied.^ The idea of salvation, the correlate of the belief 
in the judgment, is frequently expressed. The Christian's 
hope in salvation is perhaps the key-word to the epistle.^ 
The judgment is conducted both by God and Christ.' 

5. The letter is directed to the "sojourners of the disper- 
sion," i, e., Jewish Christians. While there is no antagonism 
to gentile Christians, and the church has become an "elect 
race," it seems clear that Peter regards the Jews as com- 
posing its main body. In this connection it is interesting 
to note the steady parallelism which the epistle draws between 
the ancient prophecies of the glories of the Hebrew nation 
and those of this "elect ' ' nation.^ No distinct statement in the 
epistle describes the relation of the church to the messianic 
kingdom, but it was hardly needed. The members of the ' ' elect 
nation" are obviously the subjects of the coming kingdom. 

6. The resurrection lies in the background of the epistle 
as a part of the salvation which awaits the believer. The 
Christian's hope was one begotten by the resurrection of 

ilPet.5:8,9. 21 Pet. 1:7; 2:12; 4:5. 

siPet. 4:5, 6. UPet. 1:7, 8; 4:13; 5:1,4. 

51 Pet. 4:5, 6, where the reference includes the dead; 2:23; 4:17. This latter 
reference is somewhat enigmatical. The reference is probably to the persecutions 
under which the church was laboring, and which were to be shortly ended at the 
appearance of the Christ ; 1 Pet. 1 : 6, 7 ; 5 : 10. 

6 1 Pet. 1 : 5-10; 2 : 22. U Pet. 2 : 23 and 4:5; cf. Acts 10 : 42. 

8 For instance, the hope for the KArjpovojata, as in Lev. 20:24; Deut. 19:10; 20:16, 
reappears in 1 Pet. 1:4. Cf. also 1 Pet. 3 : 9. 



The Messianism of Peimitive Chkistianity 153 

Jesus the Christ from the dead, and so could be called a 
living hope — that is to say, a hope which looked forward 
to life,^ and that life was to be like that of God.^ 

7. Jesus throughout the epistle is always conceived of as 
the Christ. He is at the right hand of God, and supreme 
over all angels and other heavenly beings.^ Yet his glory 
is to be seen only when he is revealed in the last time.* 

How far Peter had moved away from Pharisaism is to be 
seen, however, in his Christology. This is precisely what is 
to be expected. The insistence that Jesus was to fulfil the 
messianic hope would of necessity tend to center attention 
upon him. Such facts, therefore, as actually lay in his life 
would of necessity be given large value. How far this could 
be carried into systematic thought will appear in the discus- 
sion of Paulinism. It is enough now to recognize the fact 
that in 1 Peter the death of Jesus is regarded as a means of 
redemption,^ and that all his sufferings are held to have been 
in accordance with messianic prophecy.^ The Petrine Chris- 
tology is strictly messianic. It is centered, not in any meta- 
physical conception of deity, but in the divine spirit which 
was in Christ, spoke by the prophets, and was accordingly 
pre-existent. It was this spirit that raised Jesus from the 
grave,^ and it was in the spirit — that is, with his human 
spirit anointed with the divine spirit — that between his 
death and his resurrection, Jesus, without his physical body, 
preached to the spirits "in prison" in order that his mission 
might include the dead as well as the living.^ 

U Pet. 1:3; c/. 1:23; 5:4. 21 Pet. 4: 6, 13; 5:1. 

31 Pet. 3:22; c/. 4:11. UPet. 1:7, 8; 4:13; 5:1. 

5 1 Pet. 3 : 18, 19-24 ; 3 : 18. 6 1 Pet. 1 : 11. 

U Pet. 3:18. 

8 1 Pet. 3 : 19 f . Cf. Acts 2 : 27, according to which the spirit of the Messiah could 
not be left in Sheol. For the force of " in prison" cf. Apoc. Baruch, 23:4; 4 Esdras, 
7:85,95. This passage in 1 Peter has given rise to a large literature. Chief among 
others, reference can be made to Stevens, Theology of the Neiv Testament, pp. 304-11; 
Spitta, Christi Predigt an die Geister; Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Immortality '2, 
pp. 450-86. 



154 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

The Peter of the epistle is at one with the Peter of Acts 
in holding that this same spirit came to the believer. From 
this divine source came the Christian's power and impulse 
to service and to endure persecution. Thence, too, came 
the certainty of the blessings of life in the messianic king- 
dom.^ From the spirit came also sanctification,^ with its 
attendant forgiveness and salvation. That the epistle does 
not elaborate this aspect of the Christian life should not 
obscure the fact that matters of religious experience are 
recognized. Here, as throughout the thought of the New 
Testament, we can clearly distinguish between the phenom- 
ena of spiritual life and their interpretation. 

Ill 

It is only in the sense that it is not Pauline that the 
epistle of James can fairly be correlated with primitive 
Christianity. Even more than in the case of 1 Peter is it 
probable that it represents chronologically a period much 
later than the apostolic times. External evidence all but 
forces us to such a conclusion.^ That the book was written 
by the brother of Jesus is an honor which it never claims, 
nor indeed could claim, for itself. It is an early homily, 
with more or less polemic purpose against Paulinism. It is 
more concerned with conduct than with hope, and the mes- 
sianic element in it is all but missing.* None the less, back 
of the exhortations of the epistle lies the expectation of the 
new age which is to come when the believer is to have a 
crown of life;^ and, furthermore, the judgment and the judge 
were always to be expected.^ The kingdom was to come to 

ilPet. 4:6, 10, 11, W. 2iPet. 1:2. 

3 See O. Cone, "Epistle of James," in Encyclopcedia Bihlica. An independent 
judgment can be readily formed by examining the evidence in Charteeis, Canonicity. 
To the contrary see Mayor, Introduction to the Epistle of St. James. Bacon's dis- 
cussion in his Introduction, pp. 159 fE., is a lucid presentation of the essential 
elements of the problem. 

4 This wholly apart from the question of the genuineness of 'Irjaov XpLarov in 2 :1, 

& James 1:12. 6 James 4: 12. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 155 

those who loved Jesus as Christ/ and condemnation was to 
come to those who broke the law.^ Jesus the Lord was to 
come soon.^ These elemental matters of Christian hope 
had become by the time the letter was written the source 
of inspiration and a basis for warning in the matter of con- 
duct. Christian life was paramount to Christian profession/ 
but the work of the spirit is all but unmentioned/ 

IV 

At the opposite extreme from the scantiness of data in 
the epistle of James is the wealth of material in the Apoc- 
alypse of John. The time of its composition is now pretty 
generally held to be in the reign of Domitian, and at first 
sight it may seem, therefore, a mistake to use it as a source 
for primitive Christianity. At the same time, it is certainly 
not controlled by Paulinism, and its Jewish element is very 
pronounced. In fact, it is now commonly held to be com- 
posed of a number of Jewish apocalypses which have been 
rewritten and united by a Christian author into a strikingly 
unified Christian production.^ 

1 James 2 : 5. 

2 James 2 : 11. It is worth noticing, however, that this " royal law " (vs. 8) or law 
of liberty (vs. 12) is subjective — something far more authoritative than Mosaism. 
Cf. Gould, Biblical Theology of the New Testament, pp. 110-18. 

3 James 5:7,8. 4 James 2 : 14 f . 

5 James 4:5. This passage is capable of two renderings, but in either case it 
refers to the residence of a nvevixa in the Christian which is the gift of God. 

6 See BoussET, art. "Apocalypse of John," in Ency. Bib., and Poetee, art. " Reve- 
lation," in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. For various partition theories see 
BoussET, Der Antichrist (Eng. trans., Legend of the Antichrist) ; and works by 
Spitta, Die OffenbarungJohannis; Vischee, Die Offenbarung Johannis; Schmidt, 
Anmerkungen iiber die Komposition der Offenbarung Johannis ; Vol tee. Das Problem 
der Apocalypse : Gunkel, Schdpfung und Chaos; BuiGGS, Messiah of the Apostles. 
A good general account of these views is given by Barton, " The Apocalypse and 
Recent Criticism," in the American Journal of Theology, October, 1898. For our 
present purpose we may well waive the decision of the vexed problem of authorship, 
involving as it does the determination as to whether there were two Johns — the 
apostle and the presbyter— the latter of whom may have written or edited the Apoca- 
lypse. The data at our disposal are too vague and the criteria are too subjective to 
warrant complete certainty, and in any case the contents are intelligible enough to 
be dated with considerable precision. The habits of the apocalypse writers would 
lead one to favor the view that the work is pseudonymous, were it not for the per- 
sistent external evidence in favor of the Johannine authorship. 



156 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

The general character of the book is clearly enough that 
of the other apocalypses. There are the same pictures of 
distress, the same promises of deliverance, the same use of 
symbols, and the same forecast of punishment for oppres- 
sors. Coupled with these strictly apocalyptic materials are 
the letters to the seven churches which are intended to show 
the ideal which should obtain among those bodies of Chris- 
tians who are awaiting their Lord's return to establish a 
messianic era. It is to be expected, therefore, that, more 
than in any other book of the New Testament, the Revela- 
tion of John should conform to the general messianic scheme 
of the apocalypses. Nor are we disappointed. In it are 
the chief elements which belong to all Jewish messianism, 
with the exception that the kingdom is not expressly limited 
to Jews. Yet even its pictures of the New Jerusalem 
followed the general Jewish scheme. It was to have twelve 
gates, one for each tribe of Israel.^ 

The main purpose of the book is to describe the misery 
of the church, its assured deliverance by its Christ who is 
to return from heaven, the punishment which he will inflict 
after a desperate struggle upon his enemies, and the bless- 
ings of the redeemed, especially of the Christian martyrs. 

More particularly, the main elements of messianism are 
always in evidence: 

1. The two ages are clearly recognized.^ 

2. The present age is under the control of Satan, who 
besides being active is represented by anti-Christ, false 
prophets, and the Beast.^ 

3. The kingdom is to be established in the near future 
by Christ, not by social evolution. The attitude of the 

1 Rev. 21:10-12. 

!2 There is no use of the two contrasted terms owros 6 atciv and 6 ^e'A\wv a'aav, but 
the entire scheme of the book involves the end of one era and the beginning of 
another. Most of the book is devoted to portraying the events accompanying and 
preceding the transition. 

3 Rev. 12 : 9, 12 ; 20 : 2. Cf. the references under paragraph 4 below. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 157 

believer is one of prayer that it should come quickly/ 
Already prepared in heaven, it is shown to the seer by an 
angel, and its glories are described in detail.^ 

4. The period of judgment is very elaborately defined. 
Here, even more than in the other portions of the New 
Testament, the struggle between the two kingdoms is 
elaborated. Satan is to be bound for a thousand years, and 
Christ is to reign with those who, because of martyrdom, 
are first to share in the resurrection.^ This is the only 
passage in the New Testament in which there is any refer- 
ence to the reign of Christ for a thousand years upon the 
present earth.* Subsequent to this period of joy there is to 
be a fearful struggle, when Satan is to be loosed and the 
nations, under Gog and Magog,^ are to make a terrific onset 
upon the messianic kingdom. They are to be utterly destroyed 
by God, and the devil with the Beast and false prophets are 
to be cast into the lake of fire.^ This period of struggle 
leads immediately to the establishment of the great judg- 
ment by God of the living and the dead. In accordance 
with the Jewish expectation,^ the records of every man 
are in the heavenly books, and the judgment is pronounced 
by God in accordance with these records.^ As a result 
of this judgment the wicked are sent to the lake of fire,' 

lEth. Enoch, 90:27-29; Slav. jBnocTi, 35 : 2 ; 4 Esdr., 19:26; 10: 27 f. ; 13:36; Apoc. 
Baruch,i:2-6; 32:2. 

2 Rev., chap. 21. This view of course assumes that the New Jerusalem is to be 
identified with the messianic kingdom. See Pss. Sol., 17: 33, 34. For rabbinic refer- 
ences see VOLZ, Jiidische Eschatologie, 334 f. The figure of Jerusalem as the bride of 
the Messiah is not found in Jewish apocalypses, 4 Esdr., 7:26, being probably a 
Christian interpolation. 

3 Rev. 20:1-6. 

4 The nearest approach to it is 1 Cor. 15:24-27. The origin of a "thousand 
years," as has already appeared, is to be seen in Slav. Enoch, chaps. 32, 33. 

5 Cf. Ezek. 38 : 2 ; 39 : 16. 6 Rev. 20 : 7-10. 

■^ See the important discussions of VoLZ, Jiidische Eschatologie, pp. 93 f. ; Bousset, 
Religion des Judentunis, p. 47. 

8 Rev. 20 : 11 f . Cf. Eth. Enoch, 47 : 3 ; 90 : 20 ; 97 : 6 ; 4 Esdr., 6 : 20. 

9 Rev. 21:8. 



158 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



while the righteous are raised and sent to paradise. The 
wicked thus pass into the second death or endless period of 
torment.^ 

5. The kingdom is not to be Jewish, but Jews are repre- 
sented as forming an integral part of the redeemed.^ 

6. The resurrection of the righteous is clearly taught 
and is one of the chief things which distinguish their 
future from that of the wicked, who apparently are only to 
be brought from Sheol to the judgment. There are in 
Kevelation two resurrections ; the first preceding the mil- 
lennium, and the second following. At the first resurrec- 
tion the martyrs alone are raised, while in the second all 
the righteous are raised to live in the new heavenly Jeru- 
salem.^ This new Jerusalem is established in the new 
earth, the old earth and the old heavens having passed 
away.* Throughout this glorious period the distinction 
between the Jews and the gentiles is not to be removed, but 
they are both alike to enjoy the privileges of the new 
universe in which joy is supreme.^ 

The chronological relation of these resurrections with 
the judgment is not elaborated, but a probable order seems 
to be : the parousia and the triumph over earthly foes and 
binding of Satan ; the first resurrection (of martyrs) ; the 
millennium, the messianic conquest of evil spirits, the second 
resurrection ; the general judgment ; the punishment of the 

^ It is to be borne in mind that this concept of the second death is not one of 
annihilation, but is in accordance with the general expectations of Jewish thought to 
which reference has already been made. Cf. Volz, Jiidische Eschatologie, pp. 270-92. 
It means the final determination that death is to be unrelieved. It is a hopeless con- 
dition in which punishment is to be put upon those who are wicked. It is further to 
be borne in mind that there is no consistent eschatology in this book, and that pas- 
sages might be quoted which would give a different future to the wicked; e. g.. 
Rev. 22:14, 15. 

2 Rev. 7:1 f. The new Jerusalem was to have twelve gates (Hev. 21:12). There 
is no evidence that the seer expected that all Israel would be saved. 

3 Rev. 20 : 4, 5, chap. 21. * Rev. 21 : 1, 5. 

5 This distinction does not injure the universalism to which the older Jewish 
material has been adapted. Cf. Rev. 7 : 4-17. 



The Messianism of Primitive Christianity 159 

wicked and reward of the righteous ; the new world with 
the new Jerusalem.^ 

So far the interpreter can go with the conviction that he 
has grasped the main elements of this wonderful piece of 
literature. But minute interpretation — as, for instance, of 
the seals, bowls, trumpets, plagues, the woman, and even 
Babylon itself, the new name, the white stone, and the 
hidden manna — ^^is confessedly fraught with serious difficul- 
ties. For our present purpose minute identifications are 
not required. It is enough to see that behind this apoca- 
lyptic vocabulary and schema were undoubtedly realities 
that contemporary readers would grasp. For, in the light 
of other apocalypses, as well as in that of such identifica- 
tions as seem probable, it is apparent that the Apocalypse 
of John, like all the literature of its class, was intended to 
encourage pious souls — in its case Christians — during 
moments of persecution. Whether the persecutors were 
Romans (as seems most likely^) or Jews (a view hard to 
substantiate), the followers of Jesus were to look forward to 
their defeat. The forbidding pictures of the Beast and of 
the False Prophet, the strange armies that afflict the earth 
— these are clearly drawn from life, and their defeat meant 
as truly political changes as do the pictures of Daniel. 
Only the end was not to be a new world-state such as the 
older apocalypses had expected. Human life in its ordi- 
nary forms was to end in a great cataclysm, or, rather, series 
of cataclysms, and the eschatological kingdom of God, with- 
out the need of temple or sun, with its subjects no longer 
clothed in flesh and blood, was to close human history. 

iFor the order in apocalyptic literature see Volz, Jiidische Eschatologie, 
p. 256. It is a fair question, however, whether some of the references given there 
{e.g., 4 Esdras, 7 : 32 ; Sib. Or. , iv, 180 ; Apoc. Baruch 42:1 1; 36 : 10) , do not show Chris- 
tian influences. For references to rabbinic belief as to a temporal reign of the 
Messiah and a first (and limited) resurrection, see Webee, Jiidische Theologie, pp. 
364 f. As to the rewards, see Bachee, Die Agada der Tannaiten, Vol. I, pp. 15, 16. 

2 See especially chap. 17. 



160 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Nor is the probability of historical identifications 
destroyed by the recognition in the book of elements drawn 
from Babylonian mythology. Indeed, it is all but certain 
that back of the seven spirits of God/ the twenty-four 
elders,^ the struggle with Satan and the dragon, lie the 
figures impressed upon Jewish thought by Babylonian liter- 
ature.^ This, however, is not to say that these figures were 
consciously used by the writer of the Apocalypse without 
historical allusion. The book is not an academic product 
concerned with abstract questions of future centuries. On 
the contrary, like all other apocalypses, it impresses the 
reader with its intense interest in the historical circum- 
stances and persons that were causing misery to the Chris- 
tian church. The origin of a concept and of a vocabulary 
is not to be confused with the usage accorded them by a 
writer living in later centuries. No historical interpreter 
would think of the book except as one intended to bring 
the hope of coming glory to bear upon conscious misery. 
Whether or not the pictures it uses were first found in 
Babylonian literature, the book is not archaeological, but 
practical. From its letters to the seven churches to the last 
apocalyptic vision it is full of instructions and exhortations 
to actual Christian life. 

Such considerations as these lead one into the real heart 
of the Apocalypse. No more than any other of the writings 
of the New Testament does it make mere dreams and words 
supreme. That to which it finally looks is not the introduc- 
tion of the messianic kingdom ; it is the Christian's achieve- 
ment of eternal life. The great reward to him that overcomes 
is to eat of the tree of life, and to wear the crown of life.* 

iRev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6; c/. Eth. ^noc/i, 90: 21. 

2Rev. 4:4, 10. 

3 See especially Gunkel, Schdpfung und Chaos,' Stave, Parsismus ; Bousset, 
The Anti-Christ Legend ; and various articles in the Encyclopcedia Biblica, Hastings's 
Dictionary of the Bible, and the Jewish Encyclopoedia. 

i Rev. 2 : 7, 10. 



The Messianism of Peimitive Christianity 161 

To have one's name taken from the book of life is equiva- 
lent to supreme misfortune/ and this life is clearly the 
opposite of that second death, so terrible in its limitations 
and in its misery, which is to come to those who have not 
accepted Jesus as Christ.^ As presented in the Johannine 
Apocalypse, this life is conceived of eschatologically, and the 
Christian apparently does not enjoy it while living in the 
body. This fact, however, is not to be interpreted as indi- 
cating any radical difference from other New Testament 
thought regarding the present life of the believer. In it, as 
in the Petrine teaching, it is the Holy Spirit that watches 
over the churches,^ and the real witness of Jesus is the 
spirit of prophecy.* Faith in Jesus as Christ involves some- 
thing more than the mere intellectual conviction, viz. , actual 
morality. Entrance into the New Jerusalem is refused those 
who live evil lives.^ Those who are to inherit the glorious 
future are the saints,^ whose good works follow with them to 
the judgment and into eternity.^ In fact, in the Apocalypse 
we get a very satisfactory combination of the idea of the 
relation of faith and of works. ^ Men are not saved by their 
good works, but, having faith, they are to live righteously 
despite all temptation and persecution. And, finally, the 
writer of the apocalypse, like Peter and all the other New 
Testament writers, is so possessed with the sense of human 
imperfection that the Christian's salvation is wholly one of 
grace. He becomes clean only by the blood of the Lamb.^ 
Thus even in this apocalypse, with its insistence upon the 
messianic eschatology, we find also a recognition of the 
vicarious death of the Christ, and the belief that eternal 

1 Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12,15; 21:27. 2Eev. 2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8. 

3 Rev. 2 : 7, 11, 17, 29 ; 3:6, 13, 22. * Rev. 19 : 10. 

5Rev. 21:8; 22:15. 6Rev. 5:8; 8:3, 4. 

7 Rev. 14:13. 

SForexample, Rev. 2:5, 16, 21, 22, 26; 3:8,11,19; 12:17; 14:12. 

9 Rev. 7 : 10, 14 ; 12 : 10 ; 19 : 1 ; c/. extreme statement in 21 : 27. 



162 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

life is possible through the union of the believer in the mes- 
siahship of Jesus with God. Glorious as is the future to 
be, the seer uses it as a basis of appeal for purity and holi- 
ness of life and obedience to the guidance of the Spirit. All 
the elaborate details of the book center about this. The 
idea of the historical Jesus has been submerged in that 
of the glorious Christ now in heaven but reigning over his 
followers upon earth. The Christian life is not a mere 
following of rules, but one in accord with the spirit of the 
heavenly kingdom rather than that of "Babylon." The 
conflict among the superhuman beings has its counterpart 
in the believer's soul. And, what is more, just as there is 
the certainty of victory when the two kingdoms come into 
conflict, so is there certainty of victory on the part of even 
the humblest of those who live the life of faith. The ethical 
appeal is based upon rewards and punishments, but, none 
the less, it is the ethical appeal that is the real heart of the 
book. 



CHAPTER II 
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL MESSIAXISM OF PAUL 



The similarity existing between the messianic hope of 
Paul and that of contemporary eschatological messianism 
becomes at once manifest when we make our accustomed 
comparison. 

1. The entire Pauline scheme is conditioned upon the 
belief in the two ages. The apostle's terminology is some- 
what varied, and he does not seem to have any single term 
to denote the new age. Generally, the ordinary terminology 
is to speak of the pre-messianic epoch in which he himself 
lived as "this age" or "this present age."^ This age 
(/coV/io?) is passing away.^ Occasionally the thought of the 
future is extended in the later epistles, and we have the 
idea of accumulated ages.^ 

2. The present age is evil/ It is not expressly said to 
be under the control of Satan,^ but the entire thought of 
Paul is that the Christian — the citizen of the coming king- 
dom — is opposed by superhuman powers which God is to 
overcome.® 

3. The age which is to come, the messianic age, is to be 
introduced by the appearance of Christ. The new kingdom 

iRom. 12:2; 1 Cor, 1:20; 2:6, 8; 3:18; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1 :21; c/. 2:2; 1 
Tim. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:10; Tit. 2:12. 

21 Cor. 7:31. Paul never uses the correlate of "this age," i. e., "the coming 
age," 6 ixekxtav aiu)v, but the distinction between the two aeons is distinctly implied by 
the one term he does employ. See also Eph. 1:21; 1 Cor. 10:11. In addition to the 
passages given above, c/. Rom. 8:18; 1 Cor. 3:19; 5:10. 

3Eph. 2:7. 4Gal. 1:4. 

5 Unless it be in Rom. 16:20; 2 Cor. 4:4; cf.l Cor. 2:8. 

6Rom. 16:20; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 2:11; 11:14; 12:7; 1 Thess. 2:18; 2 Thess. 2:9. 
See also Eph. 2 : 2. 

163 



164 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

to be established is escliatological, not dependent upon 
social evolution.^ It is to be inherited,^ and men were 
"called" into it.^ In a certain sense Paul believed that the 
pre-messianic age had already begun. It was a time of 
"present distress."* In this particular he is at one with the 
belief of primitive Christianity that Christians were living 
in the "last days." 

The term 97 /3acnXe{a rov 6eov is sometimes used by Paul 
with an eschatological connotation,^ but it obviously exposed 
the Christian movement to misinterpretation outside of Pal- 
estine, and it is not often in evidence. A belief in the 
appearance of the kingdom, however, is one of the assump- 
tions which the entire Pauline literature makes, and the 
hope of sharing in it becomes the basis of ethical appeal.^ 

It is clearly a mistake to hold that in Paul the e/cK\r]aia 
and PaaiXeCa are essentially identical. The members of the 
church, it is true, are to enter and inherit the kingdom, but 
the two concepts are complementary rather than identical. 
The church was the body of Christ in the sense that he 
exercised authority over it from his heavenly throne. 

The hypothesis that Paul distinguishes /SaaiXeia rod 

1 The truth of this statement is apparent in the light of the entire attitude of 
Paul, as indicated in his social teachings, which will be considered in detail later. 
Especial attention, however, should be called to passages given below dealing with 
the coming {napovcria) of Jesus as Christ. 

2Gal. 5:21; iCor. 6:9f. 3i Thess. 2:12. 

4 1 Cor. 7 : 26 ; cf.4 Esdras, 5 : 8 ; 6 : 21 ; Eth. Enoch, 99 : 5. This passage, however, is 
not in the text as given by Charles. 

51 Thess. 2: 12; 2Thess.l:5; 15:24,50; Gal. 5: 21; c/. 2 Tim. 4: 1,18. The fieTe<7T-n<r€v 
in Col. 1 : 13 is not necessarily proleptic. The kingdom had not come to earth, but 
the believer on earth was already a citizen of the kingdom that was in heaven. Cf. 
Phil. 3:20. Similarly, the force of KaXovvTo? in 1 Thess. 2 :12. See also the references 
given below. 1 Cor. 4:20 evidently refers to the evidence of the believer's participa- 
tion in the already existing (but not yet visible) kingdom, as seen in the gifts of the 
Spirit. It is also probably true (with Kekxedy, St. PauVs Conceptions of the Last 
Things, p. 290) that Paul clothed the idea of the kingdom in various guises ; e. (?., 
the idea of the family (Rom. 8:17.). 

6Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:20; 6:9,10; Gal. 5:21; Col. 1 :13; Eph. 5:5; c/. Rom. 8:17. 
It will be noticed that these passages all have an eschatological force. For rabbinic 
parallels see Balman, Worte Jesic, pp. 97 f . 



The Eschatological Messianism of Paul 165 

X.pLaTOv from /SacnXeLa rod 6eov has already been considered.^ 
It is enough here to say that the idea is out of keeping with 
the entire Pauline scheme. The kingdom of Christ is the 
kingdom of God in its judicial and punitive period. The 
work of the Christ is for a definite period^ and intended to 
establish the absolute and unopposed reign of God. 

4. Between the two ages was to be the judgment estab- 
lished by the Christ as the representative of God.^ In fact, 
as will appear later, the entire Pauline soteriology centers 
around this expectation of the judgment. As with the other 
Christian evangelists, he endeavored to bring men to repent- 
ance by bringing them face to face with the certainty of 
that dread event of the future.* It was then that punish- 
ment was to be assigned^ and rewards given.® This judg- 
ment was still future and is always conceived of eschato- 
logically in connection with the parousia of Jesus. ^ It is 
interesting to notice, further, that Paul distinctly states that 
the saints are to share the work of the Christ in judging 
the angels.^ 

As in the case of contemporary Jewish thought, Paul 
sometimes joins to the idea of judgment that of a great 
struggle which is to precede the final decisions of the mes- 
sianic conqueror. The idea of anti-Christ does not play 

iP. 77. See, in general, J. Weiss, Predigt Jesu, etc. The chief passage is 1 Cor. 
15:24-27. 

21 Cor. 15:24. 

3 Rom. 2:16; cf. vss. 1-11; 3:5, 6. While it is true that the Christ is represented 
by Paul as sitting in judgment over all the world, it is clear from such passages as 
Rom. 2 : 16 ; 3:6; 1 Cor. 5 : 13, that God also is regarded as a judge. There is really no 
inconsistency in such a duplication, for, it will be recalled, the messianic hope did 
not distinguish sharply between the work of God and his Christ. The Christ always 
was doing God's work. See Volz, Judische Eschatologie, pp. 260, 232-34. VOLZ 
(p. 260) declares that the Christ is never represented as the world- judge in the apoca- 
lyptic literature, but of angels and devils. The distinction does not seem to me to 
be vital. Cf. Eth. Enoch, chap. 62. 

4Acts9:20, 22; 13:38-41; 17:31. 5Rom. 1:18; 2:8,9. 

6Rom. 2:7; c/. 8:18-39. 

7Rom. 3:5, etc.; 2:12; 13:11,12; 16:3-6; 1 Cor. 3:13; 4:5. 

siCor. 6:2, 3. 



166 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

quite the same role in Pauline thought as it does in that of 
the Revelation of John, but it none the less is present/ It is 
difficult to say whether the reference to the man of Lawless- 
ness is immediately to Kome or to the Jews,^ but probably 
it is to the latter. 

Similarly, too, Paul agrees with certain aspects of cur- 
rent Jewish messianic hope in believing that the time imme- 
diately preceding the beginnings of the messianic age — the 
last days of the primitive church — that is to say, the actual 
time in which Paul was living — was to be one of suffering 
and distress.^ The coming of the messianic age and judg- 
ment Paul certainly believed was to be soon.* 

Paul was also at one with current expectations in believ- 
ing that the time of the messianic appearance and judgment 
was in some way conditioned by the condition of a wicked 
humanity.^ 

The penalty which was to be inflicted in the judgment 
was the ordinary one of Jewish expectation — suffering, but 
more particularly it is negative — death; that is to say, the 
dead sinner was not to share in the resurrection which was 
to mark the beginning of the ineffable joy of those who 
were to enter the messianic age.^ This matter will be con- 
sidered later and at length, as it is a central point in the 
Pauline thought. 

i2Thess. 2:7-9. 

2 Cf. Charles, Eschatology, p. 383; Thackeray, Relation of St. Paul to Contem- 
porary Thought, pp. 135-41; VoLZ, Jiidische Eschatologie, passim; Weber, Judische 
Theologie, pp. 365 f,; Kennedy, The Eschatology of Paul, pp. 49 f., 215-19; Bousset 
Anti-Christ; and "Anti-Christ" in Ency. Bib.; Religion des Judentums, pp. 242-45. 

31Thess. 3:3, 4; cf. Dan. 12:1; Eth. Enoch, 48:8, 10; 50:2; Apoc. Baruch,10', 
Assump. Moses, 10; Jubilees, 23. All Jewish literature, however, does not join such 
woes to the age preceding the coming of the Messiah as are suggested in 1 Cor. 7 :26. 
But as to the perils of married women in the time of messianic struggle, see4Esdras'< 
5 : 8, 6, 21. Cf. Eth. Enoch, 99 : 5. 

41 Cor. 7:29; 10:11; 15:51; 16:22; Rom. 13:11; IThess. 4:15; Phil. 4:5. A belief 
in the speedy coming of deliverance is an essential of apocalyptic, and seems to 
have been common among the Jews of New Testament times. 

5 2 Thess. 3:1,2. 62 Cor. 5:3; Rom. 5:12, 14, 17; 6:23. 



The Esohatological Messianism of Paul 167 

5. Paul breaks with Jewish messianism in that he holds 
that the messianic kingdom is not to be limited to Jews. 
This is, of course, one of the fundamental points in Paulin- 
ism and hardly requires explication. This universalizing 
habit may in a measure explain why he does not constantly 
use the term ^aaCKeCa. As has already appeared, the term 
is no stranger to him, and the concept is to be felt even 
when not explicitly referred to.^ The fact that he conceived 
of Jesus as the Christ carries with it in itself the concept of 
the kingdom,^ and the entire Pauline literature is addressed 
to those who are awaiting the coming of God's kingdom. 
The apostle's chief purpose is to be seen in his effort to 
draw out the ethical implication of this element of Christian 
faith ^ and to meet certain objections which arise on the side 
of those who would limit the blessinc^s of the new ao^e and 
kingdom to the Jews. For this reason, as well as for the 
danger of the misinterpretation of the term as one implying 
political revolution, Paul is more concerned with the prospect 
of assuring the followers of Jesus of acquittal at the mes- 
sianic judgment and of entrance into eternal life than he is 
with the kingdom itself. At the best, the phrase r] ^aai- 
Xeia Tov 6eou was Jewish, and liable to perpetuate the struggle 
in which Paul was for so many years engaged. In this 
particular we see the general tendency of the New Testa- 
ment thought inaugurated by Jesus and completed by the 
Fourth Gospel to divert attention from the kingdom itself 
to the qualities of life which are demanded of its subjects. 

6. The resurrection of those who are to share in the 
messianic age is perhaps the most striking element in the 
teaching of Paul. It is invariably placed over against the 

1 Cf. TiTius, NeutestamentUche Lehre von der Seligkeit, Vol. II, p. 32. For a 
study of the possible influence of the teaching of Jesus upon Paul in this particular, 
see Feine, Jesus Christvs und Paulus, pp. 170-74. 

2 Cf. Acts 17 : 7. 

3 See, for example, Rom. 14:17. 



168 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

unrelieved and miserable state of death which is the punish- 
raent of sin/ The details of this expectation will be con- 
sidered presently. 

7. Jesus was the personal Christ. He was in heaven,^ 
from which he was to come to bring salvation and to establish 
judgment. Thereafter there would be a messianic reign.^ 
The chief argument for believing that Jesus was the Christ 
is to be seen in his resurrection.* Just the course of argu- 
ment by which Paul found evidence of the messiahship of 
Jesus in his resurrection, it is at this distance a little diffi- 
cult to say, unless it be that of Acts, chap. 13.^ It is to be 
noticed that this argument does not make the resurrection 
the origin of the belief in Jesus as Christ. This already 
had appeared; the disciples believed him to be the future 
Christ before his death. It does argue, however, that the 
resurrection would become a support and corroboration of 
this faith in messiahship. Nothing could be more untrue to 
the position of the apostle than the speculation that Paul's 
belief in the resurrection can be reduced to a conviction 
that God would not let so good a man as Jesus be annihi- 
lated. Paul did not believe that Jesus was immortal because 
he was the Christ, but that he was the Christ because God 
had raised him from the dead. He was not thereby made 
the Christ; he had been such during his earthly life, and 
indeed from before time. The resurrection simply exhibited 
this glorious fact and laid a foundation for the apostle's 

lEom. 5:21; 6:20-23. See also Acts 13:46-48; Eom. 2:7; 5:12-21; 6:5, 22, 23; 
7:5, 6; Gal. 6:8; 1 Cor. 15; and innumerable other passages. The explicit term 
Coiiq atwvios is used as the supreme good in Rom. 2:7; 5 : 21 ; 6 : 22, 23 ; Gal. 6 : 8 ; 1 Tim 
1:16; 6:12; Tit. 1:2; 3:7. 

2 Rom. 8:34. 3 1 Cor. 1:15, 24-28. * Rom. 1 :4 and often. 

5 The elaborate and ingenious argument of Baetox, "The Spiritual Develop- 
ment of Paul," Xeio World, March, 1899 (pp. 111-24), deserves consideration. Its 
most important element is : The ordinary messianic belief recognized the resurrec- 
tion only of the righteous and the release from death of such as Enoch, Elijah, and 
Moses. They would be " children of God " as well as sons of the resurrection (Luke 
20: 36). Hence Jesus would have had the same experience only on the ground that 
his claim to messiahship were true. 



I 



The Eschatological Messianism of Paul 169 

faith. ^ This resurrection of Jesus will be seen to play a 
very large role in the Pauline thought. In fact, from one 
point of view, the Pauline soteriology is a generalization of 
the experience of Jesus. In view of this fact, it is idle to 
belittle the historical element in Paulinism. 

It appears from this comparison that Paul shared largely^ 
in the eschatological messianism of the apocalypses. When 
one comes to consider his views in detail, it will appear 
that eschatology is really the center of Pauline thought. 
He, like the Christians of Jerusalem, found the begin- 
ning of his Christian life in the conviction that Jesus was 
the Christ, destined to return from the world of spirits 
where he was already in supreme authority, to do the work 
of the expected eschatological Messiah upon the earth. 
How far he was forced by the facts of the belief of Jesus and 
by his own experience to modify the pharisaic messianism, 
and to transfer the emphasis from the interpretation of 
Jesus to the significance of Jesus himself and to the Spirit, 
will appear presently. 

II 

For in the case of Paul, as in the case of the other New 
Testament writers, it would be a serious mistake to overlook 
the radical changes which came in the messianic concepts 
which he had inherited because of the positive data afforded 
him by the historical career of Jesus. The Christ with 
Paul was not a speculation or the product of faith. He was 
real. Inevitably, therefore, with him, even more than with 
the other apostles, the facts connected with the historical 

1 The argument of Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstdndnis des Keuen 
Testamentes, that the belief in the resurrection of the Christ was included in con- 
temporary unofficial messianism, is untenable in view of Gunkel's own statements. 
Cf. op. cit., p. 79. 

2C/. W'REDiE,AufgabeundMethode dersogenanntenNeutestamentUchen Theologie, 
p. 63, "There is a Pauline doctrine of redemption .... but there is — to speak 
cum grano sails — no Pauline angelology and eschatology, but only a Jewish or 
primitive Christian." There are both truth and error in the statement. 



170 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

career of Christ set certain conditions which led to the 
modification of an a priori expectation. The inherited mes- 
sianic concept was but the starting point of the new Chris- 
tian thought which Paul inaugurated. 

First among these modifications were those resulting 
from the humiliation to which Jesus had been subjected. 
The Christ, notwithstanding the fact that he was next in 
importance to God,^ had submitted to the humiliations of 
humanity and had suffered the extremes of suffering, con- 
tumely, and death. The doctrinal consequences of this fact 
are, perhaps, the most profound contribution made by Paul 
to religious thinking — a contribution which needs only to 
be estimated in a truly historical light to be recognized as 
possessing supreme evangelical value. Here, as in so many 
other instances, Paul was dominated by a reverence for his- 
torical facts which some of his modern interpreters might 
well emulate. And here, too, he was at one with the early 
apostolic Christianity. There was a mystery in the unex- 
pected appearance of Christ, and there were unanswerable 
problems from the point of view of Judaism and of 
philosophy,^ but in it was limitless help for those oppressed 
by the problems of human suffering and by the appre- 
hension of death. It was not a mere man who had died; it 
was the Christ. 

A second modification, again already made by primitive 
Christianity, was the inevitable outcome of the same regard 
for historical reality. The fact that the Christ had died in 
no way diminished his messiahship. It rather opened up a 
more magnificent vista of authority. Dead, he had been 
raised, the first-fruits of all those in whose life the spirit of 
God was working. It may well be emphasized that, with 
Paul, the resurrection of Jesus was a historical fact and not 
a product of faith. Paul did not come to the messianic 

iPiiil. 2:5-11. 2iCor. 1:23, 25. 



The Eschatological Messianism of Paul 171 

conviction as to Christ by precisely the same path as that 
followed by Peter. The early apostles had believed that 
Jesus was the Christ by virtue of their association with him, 
and this conviction had been confirmed by his resurrection. 
Paul, on the contrary, had found it impossible to believe 
that the Nazarene who had been crucified was the Christ 
until the evidence that he had been raised from the dead 
declared to him that messianic quality.^ But, if raised 
from the dead, Jesus was already Christ in the spiritual 
world. Through the spirit he was already exercising his 
authority from heaven. Thence he would presently appear 
to do upon the earth those things which the eschatological 
expectation of the Christ in a general way prescribed. This 
expectation of the return of Jesus was therefore in Paul's 
case, as in the case of the apostles, a corollary of the 
messianic interpretation. The argument was simple and 
convincing: Jesus was the Christ; he had not done his 
messianic work ; he had gone to heaven ; and therefore he 
must return to earth to perform his proper work.^ It was 
this return and the belief that those who had accepted him 
as their messianic king would at the Christ's appearance be 
made perfect members of the messianic kingdom, and so 
saved, that became one of the dominant elements inPaulinism. _ _ 

Holding fast, on the one side, to the Davidic descent of <^ p^^' ^ 
Jesus,^ Paul yet saw the real significance of his Lord's work (^^^^^^"^ 
in his future manifestation in the body of the resurrection .^^'"''^ • ^ 
The question of the times and the seasons when he should ],,,, c^.^ - 
return upon the earth to exhibit the messianic authority 
and glory he was already exercising in heaven, is one about 
which Paul does not particularly speculate. He was con- 
vinced that it would be soon.* In his earlier career he 

1 Rom. 1:4. 2 Phil. 2 : 20, 21. 3 Rom. 1:3. 

*Rom. 13:11; ICor. 7:29; 15:51 (c/. 12:26; 16:22) ; IThess. 4:15; 5; 2; Phil.4:5. See 
Teichmann, Auferstehung und Gei'icht, pp. 13 f . ; Holtzmann, NeutestamentUche 
Theologie, Vol. II, p. 188. The rabbis also believed that the coming of Messiah would 
be soon. Cf. Webee, Judische Theologie, pp. 334 f . Kennedy, St. Pauls Conceptions 



172 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

evidently expected it to be in his own lifetime. Later this 
expectation seems tc have become somewhat modified by the 
delay in the fulfilment of his hope, and he seems to have 
expected that he himself might die before the parousia.^ 
But he never abandoned his general expectation that the 
tinae was short and that the kingdom was at the door. It 
was merely a question of his own individual experience — 
as to whether he would be among those who slept and so 
be actually raised from the dead, or among those who were 
not to die, but who "were left,"^ and were to be "changed."^ 
When Paul came to describe this appearance of Christ 
and the kingdom, he was without historical data, and the 
details he gives are probably derived from contemporary 
expectations both Christian and Jewish. The Lord was to 
descend with a shout of an archangel at the "last trump."* 
As has already appeared, the apocalyptic hope always 
implied existing misery quite as much as deliverance. The 
apocalypses were always the messengers of hope to men in 
distress. It would be easy, therefore, for those possessed 
of that hope in the apostolic times quite as truly as in later 
times to see in any increase of misery, whether or not it was 
the work of the persecutors, the evidence of the approach- 
ing end. Thus Paul explained the appearance of persecu- 
tion in the Thessalonian church. As has been noticed, he 
introduced the idea of anti-Christ already engaged in a 
struggle with the Christ.^ In view of the fact, therefore, 

of the Last Things, p. 163, very properly refuses to hold to developing stages in the 
Pauline eschatology. Charles, Eschatology, chap. 12, certainly fails to substantiate 
the opposite view. Really to appreciate Paul's expectations of the time of the 
parousia attention should be given to a great number of passages in which he refers 
to it and the judgment in a general way. See, e.g., Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor. 5:1-7; Col. 
1:22, 28 (Trapao-TTjerat) ; 3:4. The hopes of Israel's conversion before the parousia in 
Rom., chap. 12, are to be interpreted from this point of view. 

1 Rom. 11 : 25 ; Phil. 3 : 11. 2 i Thess. 4 : 15. 3 Rom. 14 : 8. 

ilThess. 4:16; 1 Cor. 15:51. Cf. 4 Esdr., 6:20-23. Webee, Judische Theologie, 
p. 369, gives parallels from rabbinic thought. See also Kabisch, Eschatologie des 
Paulus, pp. 238 f. 

5 2 Thess. 2 : 1-10 ; cf. 1 Cor. 7 : 26-28 



The Eschatological Messianism of Paul 173 

that persecution was coming upon the church because of 
its loyalty to the Christ, as well as in view of the evident 
struggle of Christ against the demons evinced in the 
power of those possessed of the Spirit, Paul was convinced 
that he and all those to whom he wrote were living in the 
last days. 

Paul in speaking of the irapovaia evidently does not con- 
tradict the recorded sayings of Jesus, however he may deal 
with other matters than those treated by Jesus. Indeed, in 
the light of 1 Thess. 4:15, it would not be impossible to 
hold that the apostle's thought was directly affected by 
the teachings of his Lord/ Whether or not he derived his 
conviction as to the speedy return of Jesus from his Lord's 
own words can probably never be satisfactorily answered. 
It is not improbable that in some degree the belief did rest 
on some of the words of Jesus recorded in Mark,^ but there is 
no absolute need of discovering such an origin. All apoca- 
lyptic hope looked for speedy deliverance, and the Christians 
of the New Testament as a class expected the coming of 
Jesus within their lifetime. 

Ill 

The facts already noticed direct us to the proper point of 
approach to Paulinism as a system. Historical orthodoxy, 
as represented by the older Protestant theologians and prac- 
tically all those of the Roman church, has come closer to 
the center of the apostle's thought than those later inter- 
preters who have made the mystical union of the believer 
with Christ or faith as an incipient and potential righteous- 
ness the center of Paulinism. Even a superficial study of 
Paul's thought will convince one that there is much truth in 

1 But see Teichmann, Auferstehung und Gericht. 

2 P. 117 above. Even Muiehead, Escliatology of Jesus, 135 f., though explaining 
away all personal reference, admits that Jesus expected*" the fall of the Jewish state 
and the introduction of a new age during his own generation. 



174 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

these later views. The apostle certainly believed in the 
union of the believer with Christ, and quite as certainly 
believed faith in Jesus as Christ to be the condition of 
moral advance. But neither of these two conceptions forms 
really the center of his thought. Both by his experience 
and his antecedents Paul could hardly have made anything 
but eschatological messianism the co-ordinating schema of a 
system that centered about a belief that Jesus was the'Christ.^ 
He had been a Hebrew of the Hebrews ; a Pharisee, as touch- 
ing the law blameless.^ As regards experience, his accept- 
ance of Jesus as the Christ^ was the turning-point of his 
career. 

Evidently the content of the predicate "Christ" would 
be a vital element of his new thought. Jesus he had known 
at least by reputation.* Conceptions of the character and 
office of a Christ he had derived from Judaism. He had 
but to bring the personage and the conception together, that 
is, have faith. In this he was at one with the other apostles. 
He was interpreting a historical character in terms of inher- 
ited concept. The faith that Jesus was the Christ was the 
beginning of the apostle's Christian life. From it followed 
those deeper experiences which he describes in terms of the 
Spirit. When Paul came to extend this new faith and this 
experience into something like a system, his writings at once 

1 It is interesting to notice that in the same proportion as investigators have 
freed themselves from dogmatic presupposition and have come under the influence 
of the historical spirit, they emphasize this thought. In his preface to his admirable 
volume, St. PauVs Conceptions of the Last Things^ Kennedy has this significant sen- 
tence : " In an investigation of Paulinism, undertaken for another purpose, I had 
been growingly impressed by the vital bearing of St. Paul's eschatological outlook 
upon his theology as a whole. His conceptions of the Last Things were manifestly 
factors of supreme importance in the organization of his religious thought." Ken- 
nedy goes on to insist that Paul has no systematic eschatology. In this, as may 
appear, he is both right and wrong. 

2 Phil. 3:5; Acts 23 : 6 ; cf. Gal. 1 : 13, 14. 

3 Gal. 1:15, 16; Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:17,18. 

*2 Cor. 5:16. However this passage maybe interpreted, it is certainly impos- 
sible to doubt that he who was persecuting people for accepting Jesus as Christ 
should have known something about Jesus. 



The Esohatological Messianism of Paul 175 

make evident how formative in his thought was his early 
training. Eternal life, as enjoyed in its initial stages, was 
co-ordinate with the historical Jesus as a focus of all his 
thought. 

Nor do the Thessalonian letters represent a passing or a 
local phase of the apostle's thought. Eschatology, buttressed 
as it was by the historical data furnished by the experiences 
of Jesus, always conditioned it. All Paul's converts, not 
merely those at Thessalonica, had been taught concerning 
the new king Jesus,^ and had left their former gods or cult 
to wait for the appearance of God's Son from heaven.^ To 
this event, as not only the supreme moment of human his- 
tory, but also as a supreme motive for right living, Paul 
repeatedly returns.^ For that day* of the revelation of Jesus 
Christ^ with his angels^ he and all his converts looked, wait- 
ing for the adoption, viz., the resurrection of the body/ 
Then was to come the judgment for all men.^ Then were all 
things to be tried by fire.^ Then were to be assigned the 
two great awards: "vengeance to those who know not God, 
and to those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus, who 
shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the 
face of the Lord and from the glory of his might "^° — 
"wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish;"" but 
eternal life with all the blessings of the resurrection to those 
"who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and 
incorruption.^^ To be worthy of the new kingdom then to 
be established is Paul's repeated prayer for himself and his 
converts. ^^ While in it alone, through the possession of a 

1 Acts 17 : 7 ; c/. 1 Tim. 1:1. 21 Thess. 1:10; 2:20; 3:13; c/. PhH. 1:6, 10. 

3Eom. 8: 23-25 ;1 Cor. 6:9, 10; 15: 23. ^1 Cor. 1:8; 3:13; 2 Cor. 1:14. 

51 Cor. 1:7,8; Phil. 1:6,10. 62Thess. 1:7. 

VEom.8:18-25. 

8 Acts 17: 30, 31; Kom.2:6,16; lCor.4:5. C/. Rom. 2:16; 14:10f.; 2Cor.5:10. 

91 Cor. 3:11-15. 10 2 Thess. 1:8, 9. 

"Rom. 2:8. 12 Rom. 2:7. 

13 1 Thess. 2 : 12 {cf. vs. 10) ; 2 Thess. 1:5; Gal. 6 : 7-9 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 58. 



176 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

"spiritual body"^ was to be ended that struggle between the 
o-dp^ and the irvevfia which was the tragedy of the unbeliever, 
and the cause of continuous discipline and struggle on the 
part of the believer. And finally, Paul's entire teaching con- 
cerning justification by faith is conditioned by this eschato- 
logical judgment. 

lEom. 8:23-25; 1 Cor. 15:44. 



CHAPTER III 
THE THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PAULINE MESSIANISM 

To ADD an eschatological expectation to an otherwise 
complete system is one thing; to make eschatological mes- 
sianism the correlating thought of an entire system is quite 
another. Recent speculative theology is inclined toward 
the former treatment of the matter, but Paulinism is an 
example of the latter. The two great elements of the 
apostle's thought were, first, as has already been said, the 
belief that Jesus was the eschatological Christ, and, second, 
the experience of the Spirit which came in consequence of 
such belief. All of Paul's thinking was an ellipse about 
these two foci. How far the messianic scheme controlled 
his speculations and arguments is now to be considered. 



With all the early Christian writers, Paul made ethics 
depend upon religion, and deep within the religious con- 
cept was that of rewards and punishment which were to be 
determined at the judgment.^ 

Paul's starting-point for all his evangelic thinking is 
that of the prophets — human guilt. Liability to punish- 
ment was, however, a matter not of national, but of individ- 
ual concern. While it is very probably an overstatement 
to declare that such a concept was a necessity because of 
Paul's apologetic presentation of Christianity (Wernle), it 
is none the less apparent from the first chapter of the letter 
to the Romans that condemnation to punishment was to be 

iSee Kabisch, Eschatologie des Paulus, chap. 1; Kennedy, op. cit., chap. 1; 
TiTlus, Neutestamentliche Lehrevon der Seligkeit, Vol. II, pp. 68-70, has a discriminat- 
ing discussion of the real significance of eschatology in the Pauline teaching. 

177 



178 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

feared by all. Theoretically, it is true, Paul would recog- 
nize the possibility that a man might so live as not to be 
liable to punishment which came to those who broke God's 
law, but practically both Jew and gentile were without 
excuse and in danger of punishment.^ In this recognition 
of the finality of moral law he was in advance of most of 
the Jewish theologians of his day. They were not oblivious 
to sin or to the "evil impulse," but their profound conviction 
as to the exceptional favor to be shown the descendants of 
Abraham tended to add ethnic to genuinely moral estimates 
of conduct and future conditions.^ 

The origin of sin which brought guilt to the individual 
can hardly be said to have been discussed by Paul in detail, 
but the controlling concepts are to be found in his psychol- 
ogy. Untechnical and empirical as it is in its broad lines, 
it is essentially that of pharisaism. Christian personality 
included two elements: flesh and spirit. Flesh may be 
defined in a general way as the survival of animalism in 
humanity. It includes not only the physical body, but also 
such impulses and habits as characterize the animal struggle 
for existence. As physical it is corruptible, and as physico- 
psychological it is the ready instrument of sin.^ 

1 Rom. 2:1-16. 

2 It is easy to overstate matters at this point and to overemphasize rabbinic 
minimizing of ethical matters. It should be borne in mind, however, that national- 
ism with the Jew had in itself ethical elements. The Jew had the Thorah; the 
gentiles had it not, and were consequently evil. It would be exceedingly diflacult to 
prove that any reputable Jewish teacher seriously held that mere birth, apart from 
religious and moral relations, was to be a basis of acquittal at the judgment. For 
the most favorable presentation of the matter of talmudic morality, see Lazaeus, 
The Ethics of Judaism. See also Bousset, Religion des Judentums, pp. 391-401. The 
Jewish literature sometimes states the genuinely ethical character of the judgment 
clearly. Cf. Apoc. Bar., 13:8; (Jer.) Pea 26. On the other hand, some of the later 
rabbis completely shut the door of hope to the gentiles. See references in Webee, 
Judische Theologie, chap. 6. 

31Cor. 2:11; 5:5; Gal. 3:3; 4:29; 5:16 f.; 6:8; Rom. 8:2; 9:13. See Gunkel, 
Fleisch und Geist. For an elaborate lexicographical study of terms, but in which no 
use is made of anthropology, see Schoemakee, " The Use of H^l and of nvevfjia in 
the Old Testament, and of irvevixa in the New Testament," Journal of Biblical 
Literature, Vol. XXIII (1904), pp. 13-67. 1 Cor. 15:50-54 shows the corrupt nature 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 179 

On the other hand, the spirit is that element of man that 
is not physical and is essentially of the same character as 
God. It would hardly be safe to deny that Paul conceived 
of the spirit as in some attenuated way material, or that he 
believed that it could exist in a bodiless form.^ Whether 
Paul would hold that the unregenerate man had a spirit is 
doubtful. Any final statement seems excluded by the fact 
that the apostle is chiefly concerned with psychology in its 
moral and religious sides, and is not in the least interested 
in it in a purely scientific way. In view of the current 
anthropology of his day, it might be presupposed that he 
would hold to a dichotomy of body and spirit (soul). Such a 
passage as 2 Cor. 7:1, which speaks of the "filthiness of 
the flesh and spirit," as well as 1 Cor. 2:11, where the 
*' spirit of man" is spoken of in a genuinely psychological 
sense, argue that Paul did hold that a man before his recep- 
tion of the Holy Spirit had a spirit of his own.^ But the 
apostle never elaborates this view, even if he never actually 
contradicts it. All but exclusively irvevfJLa is used of Chris- 
tians, and in such relations as tend to obscure its distinction 
from the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it could be defined material- 

and future of the flesh. See, in general, LttoEMANN, Anthropologie des Apostels 
Paulus. The distinction sometimes drawn between ^vxn and -nv^vixa is not to be 
found in Paiil except in 1 Thess. 5 : 23, where the tripartite formula is used in a loose 
sense. But see Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, and Laidlaw, Bible Doctrine of 
Man. See also. Cone, Paul, The Man, The Missionary, and The Teacher, chap. 10; 
Pfleideeee, PauUnism, Vol. I, chap. 1 ; Thackeeay, The Relation of St. Paul to 
Contemporary Jewish Thought, chap. 2, which gives a number of interesting parallel- 
isms between Paul and pharisaism. On the Jewish psychology see VoLZ, JUdische 
Eschatologie, pp. 146-48. 

icy. "naked," 2 Cor. 5:3; Pfleideeee, PawZmism, Vol. I, pp. 201; Kabisch, 
Eschatologie des Paulics, pp. 113. The current Jewish belief was also dichotomous 
(Eth. Enoch, 108: 7 f.). Human personality consisted of body and spirit. The latter 
is pre-existent and immortal. (See Baeton, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1902, 
pp. 78-91.) The former is corruptible. The two were united at conception, the spirit 
being brought from the " treasure house " in the seventh heaven by its guardian angel 
(Webee, Judische Theologie, p. 212). They were separated at death. After death 
souls went to Sheol. For the figure of clothing and unclothing with reference to life 
and death, see Slav. Enoch, 22 : 8 ; Eth. Enoch. 62 : 15, 15 ; 4 Esdras, 2 : 39. 

2 So, too, Rom. 8:16. 



180 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

istically as that portion of the Holy Spirit "given" to each 
individual Christian ; and more psychologically as the moral 
and religious elements of human personality brought into 
new consciousness and power ^ through their union with the 
Spirit of God;^ or from another point of view, it is God in 
human consciousness. 

Our discussion, however, would not be complete without 
a consideration of a second line of contrast, viz., between 
o-w/xa and z^oO?. In a general way, this contrast is parallel 
with that between adp^ and irvevfia, but it emphasizes psy- 
chological rather than moral elements. At the same time, Paul 
regards the vov<; — at least that of the Christian — as pos- 
sessed of high moral ideals. It is that which wishes (im- 
potently) to keep the law of God,^ but is hindered by the 
body ("members").* It is the mind that, when renewed, 
transforms the entire personality^ until the will of God is 
known. On the other hand, its evil transformation afiPects 
the personality for evil.® One might even define it as reason 
exercised in and capable of moral distinctions. It would be 
a mistake precisely to identify vov^ and Trvev/ia^'' for in the 
untechnical psychology of the apostle the two are contrasted 
according as emphasis is centered upon the work of the Holy 
Spirit. The spirit may exercise in fullest the divine afflatus, 
and yet the rational faculties remain unsatisfied.^ Similarly 
(7Ct)fjLa is not precisely the same as crdp^, for it does not pos- 
sess those qualities which sometimes might be described as 
-sjrvxi'ico'; as well as aapKLvo^. It is purely physical, destined 
to disappear at death. 

Yet it would be a mistake to draw the line of distinction 

1 Gal. 5 : 22, 23. 

2 For approximate parallels see Slav. Enoch, 30 : 8 ; Wis. Sol., 2 : 23, 24. 

3 Rom. 7 : 22^ Kara tov Io-m avdpojirov, is equivalent to voos of vs. 23. Cf. further 
Eom. 7:25. 

4 Rom. 7 : 23 ; cf. vs. 24. 5 Rom. 12 : 2. 6 Eph. 4 : 17. 
7 But cf. 1 Cor. 2 : 14 with 2 : 16, and Rom. 11 : 34. 

8 1 Cor. 14 : 14. Similarly Eph. 4 : 23, although the phrase is difficult. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 181 

too sharply when Paul speaks of either aoijxa and adp^ in 
relation to sin/ The flesh is indeed formally made the 
opposite of the spirit, and the body (with its members) the 
opposite of the mind, but the two sets of contrasts are often 
almost identical.^ 

These two sets of parallel antitheses result from looking 
at humanity from different points of view, and with two sets 
of correlated ideas.^ But a certain area is common to both. 
Neither "mind" nor "spirit" is a property of the physical 
nature; both "body" and "flesh" are separable from the 
non-physical element, and both involve the punishment of 
sin in the individual, viz., death. In a word, both are 
mortal, and mortal because of sin. Whatever other matters 
are connoted by his terms, it is this great difference that 
controls the apostle's thought.* 

It follows that perfection is that state of life in which the 
spirit is freed from the flesh or the body, and lives in a body 
especially adapted to it, that is, spiritual.^ Doubtless Paul 
was confirmed in this position by his knowledge of the resur- 
rection of Jesus. 

Christianity, thus, as Paul conceives of it, deals not merely 
with moral questions, but, if we may use the term, with onto- 

1 Rom. 8:9; Gal. 5:24; cf. Rom. 6:6, 13 with Gal. 5:19. See Holtzmann, Neu- 
testamentliche Theologie, Vol. II, p. 40; Cone, Paul, etc., pp. 228, 229. 

2 In 1 Cor. 5:3, 4; Col. 2:5 the contrast is made between o-w/ia and wvevfia, and 
1 Cor. 5 : 5 speaks of the destruction of o-ap| as a condition of the saving of the spirit 
at the day of the Lord. 

3 Perhaps one might even say that aiaixa and voO? were the outcropping of a Hel- 
lenistic consciousness; a-dp^ and TrveO/aa, of a Semitic. And the two were never 
systematized. 

4C/. the "outer" and the "inner" man; 2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 3:16; Rom. 7:22. 

5 1 Cor. 15 : 44, 46. In this Paul is at one with the Pharisees who are said by 
JosEPHUS, Ant., xviii, 1:3; War, ii, 8:14, to hold that the souls of the righteous 
after death pass into new bodies. Cf. 4 Esdras, 7 : 75 f . ; Eth. Enoch, 46 : 6 ; Sanhedrin, 
10:1. Jewish eschatology, however, was not unanimous in this particular. Some 
writers evidently believed in the actual reappearance of the physical body that had 
been buried ; e.g., Sib. Or., iv, 180 f. See Webek, Jiidische Theologie, pp.j352 f. Apoc. 
Bar., chaps. 49 and 50, on the other hand, holds that, although, for the sake of pre- 
serving and exhibiting personal identity, bodies should be raised with all their 
peculiarities, those of the righteous would subsequently be changed. 



182 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

logical as well. Sin worked changes in a man's mode of 
existence. Salvation also must be concerned, on the one 
side with a deliverance from death, and, on the other, with 
the entrance into the larger and higher life possible for those 
who are not restrained by the flesh. In such a concept as 
this it is evident that psychological as well as moral consid- 
erations are of weight. 

Paul does not conceive of the individual as originating 
sin, but as an unhappy wretch who because of his flesh is 
particularly liable to sin and its penalty.^ Rabbinism had 
within it an element which is here singularly attractive from 
a speculative point of view, the evil impulse, 3>in ^^^-^ 
This was created by God and existed in all people.^ It is 
possible to show that this evil impulse was an element in the 
pharisaic anthropology, and it would be natural to appeal to it 
as a means of elucidating the Pauline doctrine of sin. Unfor- 
tunately, however, evil impulse, though present, plays no 
large role in Jewish thought contemporary with Paul, and 
certainly was not so much an explanation as a representation 
of the fact of evil in men. Nor does it necessarily involve a 
contrast between body and soul. The apostle's hamartology 
works along a different line. Sin is the outcome of Adam's 
disobedience.* Sinners were ' ' the children of disobedience. ' ' '" 
Since Adam's act sin has been a force in the world, working 
its evil results upon humanity.® The law, Paul held, had 

1 The r6le played by Satan, who is identified with the serpent, is seen in 2 Cor. 
11 : 3. 

2 For a discussion of this important element of rabbinic ethics see Webee, 
Jiidische Theologie, especially pp. 215-18 ; Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, pp. 
3S4 f. Especially see the admirable essay by Poetee, " The Yeger Hara," in (Yale) 
Biblical and Semitic Studies, pp. 93-156. 

^Sirach, 17:31; 21:11; 15:14; Test. XII Pat. Asher, 1. This relegating of the 
origin of sin to God was an element of perplexity to the rabbis, but they found some 
relief in the belief that God had also created the Thorah as a remedy ; Kiddushin, 
806; Bacher, Die Agada des Tannaiten, Vol. II, p. 337. 

4Eom. 5:19. 5Eph. 2:2; 5:6; Col. 3:6. 

6 For rabbinical views as to Adam's fall and sin cf. Sanday and Headlam:, 
Com. in Romans, pp. 136 f. For parallel between these and Paul's see Thackeray, 
Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish Thought, chap. 2. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 183 

been given by God's grace in order to show to men what 
things were sinful/ and thus to make it the easier for them 
to avoid the punishment of sin — a view not unlike that of 
the rabbis themselves.^ But men yielded to the force that 
was working upon their personality seeking through the flesh 
to control the spirit, and the law given in grace really 
increased their unhappy lot. Sin became transgression, and 
a man's punishment was consequently more severe. 

In order to appreciate this conception of the working of 
sin, it is necessary to recall that the Semitic mind was 
incapable of thinking long with the aid of abstract defini- 
tions. Inevitably the most abstract conceptions were to a 
greater or less degree personified. In the case of Paul it 
was not merely that he regarded a man as in the midst of a 
universe filled with superhuman beings seeking to work him 
harm. Sin, the disobedience of God's law, whether known 
or unknown, was also endeavoring, like a fearful spiritual 
monster, to overcome every human being. It worked 
through the flesh, which in itself is not sinful,^ but is 
susceptible to the influence of sin, and incapable of with- 
standing it or of avoiding its consequences. The working 
of sin itself is traced by Paul in a variety of ways, but 
perhaps never more strikingly than in the first chapter of 
Romans, in which he describes the downfall of the heathen. 
Ceasing to be obedient to God, and to such knowledge of 
him as they had, they became vile in every particular and 
suffered the natural consequences.* In his own experience 
also Paul knew of the tremendous power which sin exerted 
over a person through the intermediate agency of the flesh. ^ 
In his "inner man" he wished to obey the law of God, but, 

iRom. 3:20; 5:13; 7:7 f.; Gal. 3:19 f. 

2 Cf. Webee, Judische Theologie, pp. 20 f ., for references. 

3Eom. 7:18. * Rom. 1 : 18-32. 

5 Rom. 7 : 13-25. Cf. Wernle, Christ und Siinde bei Paulus, pp. 100-106. 



184 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

because of the control exercised over hita by sin, he was quite 
incapable of moral freedom. He was therefore utterly with- 
out hope, needing deliverance from the body ^ quite as much 
as from sin. 

II 

The punishment which sin brought was death. ^ There 
has been no small discussion as to just what Paul meant 
by this term.^ On the part of those of a speculative turn 
of mind it has been thought that death was to a large extent 
a figurative expression intended by Paul to set forth the 
moral decay of a personality, and the suffering which would 
therefore ensue. Such a conception is more akin to Greek 
thought than to Semitic, and there is no clear reason for 
giving the term such an abstract force. The Pauline con- 
ception of death springs from the Pauline conception of the 
constitution of man. Sin caused the separation of the two 
elements of personality. Adam had disobeyed. Through 
his disobedience sin had entered into the world, and physical* 
death through sin.^ Such a concept as this is not abstract, 
but thoroughly concrete. The spirit was separated from the 
body, the body decayed,^ the spirit remained " naked," ^ and 
after the judgment, unless delivered, was to suffer misery as 
well as deprivation of the joys that belonged to such spirits 
as were provided with "new" bodies and entered into the 
enjoyment of the new age. Moral degeneration is implied 

1 Note the expression rCs /ie pva-eTai ex toO o-w/naToj ToO OavaTOV tovtov, Eom. 7 : 24. 
2Eom. 5:12; c/. Gen. 2 : 17 ; 3:19; Eom. 6:14, 23; 7:13; 1 Cor. 15: 55, 56. 

3 For the Hebrew idea of death see Datidson, Expositor, Fifth Series, Vol, I, 
p. 330. See also Kabisch, Eschatologie des Paulus, pp. 86-89. 

4 Eom. 5:14. 

5C/. the entire passage setting forth the contrast between Adam and Christ, 
Eom. 5: 12-21. Paul does not expressly say that Adam was immortal before the fall, 
although such a view is a fair implication from his words. Nor does he discriminate 
between the death of animals and the death of man. 

61 Cor. 5:5 speaks of the oAe^pov tou o-ap/co?. 

7 In Sheol if, as is altogether probable, Paul shared in current Jewish beliefs. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 185 

by mortality/ but it is not a part of death. Nor is death 
annihilation. Death with Paul means simply death — a 
change in, not a destruction of, personal existence. Life, 
the opposite of death, is not an abstract or ethical term, but 
eternal life — that sort of life which Jesus himself actually 
is living since his resurrection. It has moral qualities, of 
course, but it is fundamentally ontological. Sin working in 
the non-spiritual element of humanity made it mortal, cor- 
ruptible. And this liability to death was humanity's in- 
heritance. Death was already in humanity, and hell with 
its sufferings for evil doing was awaiting unrepentant 
humanity.^ 

Ill 

If punishment be something so concrete and unspecula- 
tive as that death which so inspired the Hebrews with terror, 
we should expect that, in the Pauline thought, salvation 
would be something equally remote from abstract ethics; 
nor are we disappointed. SwTT^pia is clearly an eschatalogi- 
cal term which in an inclusive way stands for deliverance 
from death and all that the guilty man might fear as the 
result of his approaching condemnation. Positively it also 
connotes the entrance of the "redeemed," through the resur- 
rection of the body, into that glorious life which was to come 
to those who believed in the Anointed King.^ Here, as in 

U Cor. 2:14. 

2 A similar result is gained by a consideration of such terms as dTrwAeia and 
oAe^pos. Only by abandoning the entire Hebrew anthropology and by reading into 
the words Greek abstractions can annihilation be found in them. The entire con- 
text, for instance, of the striking passage, Phil. 3:19-21, makes it clear that one 
element of the airuiXeia awaiting those of whom Paul spoke was their non-participa- 
tion in the resurrection of the body. The force of 6\e9po? is to be seen in 1 Cor. 5 : 5. 
Cf. 2 Thess. 1:9. The contrast between men with two contrasting futures is seen in 
2 Thess. 2:10; 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Cor. 2:15; 4:3; Phil. 1:28. See, further, Menegoz, Le 
p^cM et la redemption, pp. 78 f . References to Jewish literature in Voi,z, Jiidische 
Eschatologie, pp. 282, 383. op-yrj {0eov) is also an eschatological description of the 
approaching punishment, but is given a very general force ; e. g., Eom., chap. 1. 

3 The passage which is the starting-point for all interpretation is Rom. 13 : 11, in 
which salvation is conceived of as future and is evidently correlated with the return 



186 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

so much else of his messianic thought, one sees how the 
apostle uses the terminology of the ethnic and national hope 
to describe the future of the individual. The salvation 
which the Jews of his time expected was that of a nation 
delivered from its enemies.^ With Paul the collective idea 
is altogether secondary to that of the state of the individual. 
The church was, of course, to be saved as the body of Christ,^ 
but the reward of each believer contributed to the welfare of 
the social unit. 

If we look to the apostle for more express statements as 
to the content of this messianic salvation, it will at once 
appear that fundamentally it is from the consequences of sin 
rather than from sinfulness during the physical life. In 
fact, Paul nowhere assures the believer of any release from 
the struggle in his flesh so long as that flesh is existent. 
His salvation was assured, but for that very reason he 
must more vigorously enter into those struggles with the 
kingdom of darkness which evinced the presence of the last 
days.^ The seriousness of this conflict was due, not only to 
the nature of the Christian's enemies, but to the fact that 
God was working in them* — a very expressive paraphrase 
of the thought of salvation in terms of its "earnest," the 
inworking of the divine spirit. But salvation was not 
achieved by the believer, it was granted to those whom God 
had "elected."^ Salvation was a gracious gift of God. ^ For 

of Jesus. Similarly in 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:8; 1 Cor. 5:5; Phil. 3:20; 2 Tim. 4:18. Gal. 
1 : 14 expressly refers to a deliverance from an evil age. The same thought appears 
in the synoptists, as, for example, Matt. 25 : 31, 46. 

1 This appears in the Gospels in the messianic songs of Mary and Zachariah, 
Luke 1 : 48-55, 67-79. 

2Eph. 5:23. 3 Eph. 6 : 10-18. * Phil. 2 : 12-16. 

5 2 Thess. 2 : 13. It is not necessary for the purposes of our discussion to consider 
the questions of predestination which Paulinism certainly involves. This recogni- 
tion of the supremacy of God it is that gives the great power to the apostle's the- 
ology. That there are difficulties therein no one can deny, but no more difficulties 
than lie in the modern scientific equivalent of election — natural selection; or, for 
that matter, in any other question of theodicy. 

6 Eph. 2: 5, 8. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 187 

those who believed in Jesus as Christ there was a "spiritual"^ 
body of the resurrection like the body already possessed by 
Jesus.^ It was this sort of deliverance for which every Jew 
with his horror of death, perhaps even more intense than 
that shared by most other men, had hoped. From death, 
with its inevitable misery, the Christian was to be delivered 
through the resurrection, and, on the other hand, the joys 
which Jesus the Christ was to introduce, the Christian was 
to enjoy. While salvation in its precise sense could not be 
conceived of as yet accomplished, all those who were to share 
in the resurrection and the joys of the messianic kingdom 
were already saved. They were sure of deliverance from 
the punishment for sin ; they were sure of a share in the 
messianic glory. It is in this way that the two concepts 
present in Paul, one expressed by the noun and the other 
by the verb,^ are to be harmonized. The apostle is again at 
one with his Master. As, according to the teaching of Jesus, 
the kingdom of God was already present in that the conquest 
of Satan's kingdom was in process, and some of the future 
members of the kingdom were already known, so in the teach- 
ing of Paul was salvation present in the sense that those who 
were to enjoy it were already in possession of an assur- 
ance to that effect. Such a deliverance from the punishment 
of sin was not the common property of humanity, although 
Paul called upon all men to enjoy it. The interpreter is, 
however, taught caution here by Acts 24:15. Only those 
who actually accepted Jesus as Christ could be counted as 

1 o-wjuta TTvevjuaTtKov, 1 Cor. 15 : 44, 46. While the term is obviously hard to define 
positively — as indeed Paul admits — negatively it is not flesh but serves the nvevixa 
in some such way as the cru/Aa \1/vxi-k6v had served it. 

2 Phil. 3:20. See also Rom. 8:29, where the ultimate goal of predestination is 
distinctly stated to be conformity to the image of Christ, " that he might be the first 
born of many brethren; " i. e., partake in the resurrection and eternal life. 

3 Generally speaking, the verbal form of o-w^w is in form or in connotation future ; 
e. g., Eom. 5 : 9, 10 (10 : 9) ; 1 Cor. 3 : 15 ; 5 : 5 ; 2 Tim. 4 : 18. Occasionally it is present as in 
1 Cor. 1 : 18 ; 15 : 2 ; 2 Cor. 2 : 15. It is past only rarely, as in Rom. 8 : 24 ; Eph. 2:5,8. 



188 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

those who were saved/ and the evidence for the fact was very- 
distinct. They had as the first instalment of the heavenly 
inheritance that Spirit of God which had raised Jesus from 
the dead and would subsequently quicken their mortal 
bodies.^ 

It is worth while to notice that the conclusion that salva- 
tion involves the renewal of the personality after death is 
corroborated by the fact that Paul evidently believed that 
it was not necessary for all men to die. Those Christians 
who are alive at the coming of the Savior were not to die, 
but be changed into his likeness.^ Of the fate of others than 
Christians Paul does not treat in detail, but such passages as 
speak of the "faith of Abraham as being counted to him for 
righteousness"* would lead us to infer that he would hold 
that those who had faith in God before the appearance of 
Jesus would also share in the Christian's salvation. 

Finally, with Paul, as with Peter and primitive Chris- 
tianity, and with Jesus himself, to be saved is formally to be 
aquitted at the judgment, and to share in the messianic 
kingdom. Actually it is to be freed from death, and to share 
in eternal life. The question of conduct before death is a 
corroUary rather than a cause of such salvation. The Chris- 
tian is to be like Jesus on earth because through the gift of 
the Spirit he is possessed of that higher order of life which 
is now in its consummate form being lived by Jesus in 
heaven.^ 

iRom. 3:22, 24. It is perhaps worth noticing that Slav. Enoch, 42:2, speaks of 
the suffering of sinners in the eternal life. Sokolov's text, however, omits the 
statement. 

22Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14. 

3 1 Thess. 4 : 15 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 51, 52. 

4fial.(2;:6, etc. 

^""'^ '""^ 

5 On the entire matter see Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Theologie, Vol. II, 
pp. 106 f . It is gratifying to find so much corroboration for this view in Kennedy, 
St. PauVs Conceptions of the Last Things, chap. 3. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 189 

IV 

Thus we are again brought back to the messianic signif- 
icance of Jesus, and to the meaning to humanity of the actual 
facts which the messianic conception expresses. It is doubt- 
less true that the center of the Pauline thought is the adjust- 
ment of human life to divine conditions so complete as to 
insure the enjoyment after death of all those blessings which 
may be summarized in one term, life, and the avoidance of 
all that misery and checked development which he calls 
death. But as a historical phase of religious experience 
Paulinism centers about the Messiah, Jesus. Certain recent 
tendencies in theology have made it difficult to appreciate 
the full significance of this fact. There has been a decided 
effort to strip Christianity of those elements which were 
paramount in the Pauline thought, and reduce it from a 
religious to an ethical system. As a necessary element in 
this plan there has been the elevation of the human side of 
Jesus, and the strictly messianic qualities ascribed to him by 
Paul have been ignored, or have been replaced by those 
derived from a trinitarian theology. The loss resulting has 
been considerable both for exegetical and practical purposes. 
Jesus as a mere social reformer or ethical poet is interesting, 
and the story of his life makes a good basis for rhetorical 
appeals, but any careful and impartial student of his words 
and character will say that, if this be all of his significance, 
he is of no very large importance to modern life. Beautiful 
and true as his principles are, they have been duplicated by 
nearly every teacher who has voiced the best conclusions of 
the moral experiences of any people, and like them would 
stand in need of authentication. And it is only a natural 
corollary of this reduction of Jesus to the role of example 
and sage that there should appear the tendency to strip him 
of something of ethical importance which even the first 
generation of those favoring this course of interpretation 



190 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

ascribed to him. It is more or less the fashion for the second 
generation of these destroyers of New Testament ideals to 
see in his teachings impracticable exhortations, and in his 
own character serious moral blemishes. 

The point of view of Paul is radically different. Christ's ^ 
moral teaching, difficult as it may be for human realization, 
is the expression of those great principles of conduct which 
would assure in the messianic kingdom the ideal social con- 
dition. However difficult they may be of realization for 
men in a lower stage of life, they yet represent that toward 
which human development which leads to the glorious stage 
beyond death must tend. Therefore it was that acts, words, 
and deeds which seem out of place to those who see in Jesus 
only the apostle of human sweetness and light got value. 
They are the expression of divine judgment against human 
sin, no more inconsistent with a supreme personality than 
are death and suffering and the terrible calamity which 
fell upon the Jewish state inconsistent with divine sover- 
eignty. 

Similarly, too, as regards the pre-existence of Christ. 
The Jews were, if we may trust the few statements of rab- 
binic literature, believers in the pre-existence of all souls. 
From such a point of view, therefore, it would be easy, and 
for that matter inevitable, for Paul to conceive of Jesus as 
also pre-existent, and as the pre-existent Christ.^ His 
authority would have been from the beginning, when he was 

1 Jesus is called by Paul xP<'0"ro? 382 times. He is also called Kvpios. In fact, to 
confess that Jesus is Lord is made by Paul the specific prerequisite of the Christian 
life. (ICor. 12:3; Kom. 10:9. See also Phil. 2: 11; Col. 2:6; 4:1.) It is worth noti- 
cing that in 1 Thessalonians the phrase o /cvpios i9/u,ajv 'Itjo-oO? xP'-^'^°^ is very frequent. 
Altogether he is referred to as /cvpio? thirty-seven times in this first epistle. The term 
is applied to Jesus 232 times in the entire Pauline literature. Gilbert, The First 
Interpreters of Jesiis, p. 19. Acts 9 : 22 ; 17 : 3 ; 18 : 18 are a precise representation of 
the apostle's center of interest. 

2 Phil. 2:6-8; Rom. 8:3; Gal. 4:4. To the contrary see the summary of arguments 
by GiLBEET, The First Interpreters of Jesus, chap. 1, in which the contention is urged 
that the Christ pre-existed ideally; i. e., as an element in the thought of God. See 
also Stanton, Jewish and Christian Messiah, pp. 129-33. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 191 

all but equal with God/ What his relations to the universe 
were before his birth Paul does not discuss except in broad 
terms; he was the agent of God in creation.^ However 
foreign such an expression may seem to those who think of 
God as an eternal personality permeating a universe which 
is in constant process, for the Jews it was the one means 
of describing the pre-historical supremacy of him who was 
to be supreme in the historical period.^ 

The incarnation was therefore a natural belief of Paul. 
Only, to be explicit, he speaks of the incarnation of the 
Christ rather than of the incarnation of God.* The Christ 
is presented by Paul as the eternal son of God,^ not in any 
strict sense of parentage but in the sense of Messiah. The 
incarnation is presented in its simplest form. The Christ 
took on the form of man^ — the likeness of sinful flesh' — and 
thus emptied of honor and position, took up an actual life 
of humiliation and suffering. Such an incarnation would be 
lasting. The whole Pauline conception of the resurrection 
of Jesus demands that the Christ who is now exercising his 
messianic authority in heaven anticipatory to his return to 
establish his messianic glory upon earth should be the his- 
torical Jesus. What may have been the mode of his exist- 
ence before the incarnation Paul never describes, but the 
mode of his existence after death is sharply fixed in his 
mind. He has been raised from the dead and in the body 
of the resurrection.^ Yet Paul never describes particulars. 

iPhil.2:5f. 2Eph. 1:10; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16, 17. 

3 Cf. The relation of wisdom to the world and God in Proverbs. 

4 Gould, Biblical Theology of the New Testament, pp. 96-99, argnes that Jesus 
was the incarnation of the Spirit. 

5 The full term vibs 0eov occurs only in Rom. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:19; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 
4 : 13 ; but he refers to him as the Son of God thirteen times also. The idea of Mes- 
siah embodies the primary conception. 

6 Phil. 2:7. 7Eom. 8:3. 

8 Phil. 3:21. This position clearly lies behind the apostle's doctrine of the 
resurrection. 



192 The Messianic Hope ix the New Testament 

The vision at Damascus apparently gave him no view such 
as that which is reported to have come to the other disciples. 
But Jesus appeared to him; and in such a way that his 
description of the body of the resurrection must be regarded 
as in some way its result. Jesus was the firstfruit of those 
who slept; those who believed were to be like him; and 
therefore to describe them is in some secondary way to 
describe him. Here again do we see the importance of the 
historical element in Paulinism. 

The relation of this eternally incarnate Christ to man- 
kind as a race is not discussed by the apostle. Of the seed 
of David according to the flesh/ Jesus was no typical man. 
Paul does, indeed, speak of him as *'the last Adam," or "the 
second man,"^ but it is untrustworthy exegesis that sees in 
such terms a rehabilitation of some Alexandrine or rabbinic 
philosophy.^ Paul does not draw the parallel between 
Adam and Christ except to show the relations of a primal 
individual to a social group. In the case of Adam the 
social group is humanity; in that of Christ it is the body of 
believers. The further analogy is wholly conditioned by 
this general relationship. The result of disobedience on the 
part of Adam was the death of mankind; the result of the 
obedience of Christ was the life of the believers. To find 
in this striking parallelism a general philosophy is to miss 
the point of the entire passage. 

What should be the final position of the Christ, Paul 
does not discuss in detail. His eschatology is singularly 
sane in that it rests upon the historical facts connected with 
the risen Jesus rather than upon Jewish speculation. And 

1 Rom. 1:3. ^1 Cor. 15 : 44-49 ; cf. Rom. 5 : 12-21 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 20-22. 

3C/. G. F. Moore, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. XVI (1897), pp. 158-61, 
who shows how late are the rabbinic passages that speak of the Messiah as tha 
Second Adam. Schiele, ''Die rabbinischen Parallelen zu 1 Cor. 15:45-50," Zeit- 
schrift filr icissenschaftliche Theologie (1899), finds the origin of Paul's expression in 
Philo. SoMEEViLLE, St. FauVs Conception of Christ, elaborates this view into a 
theological treatise. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 193 

yet in the same proportion as Paul moves away from facts 
into the region of implication from facts do we see the 
influence of his inherited hopes. It would not be safe to say 
that he believed in a millennium, but he clearly does hold to 
the belief in a messianic reign of limited duration. After 
Jesus as the Christ has put all enemies under his feet, he is 
to give up his messianic reign and transfer all authority to 
God the Father that God may be all in all.^ Until his Ap- 
pearance he was exercising messianic rule over the church, 
his body, caring for its organization and supplying its mem- 
bers with his Spirit.^ 

V 

It is from this point that we must approach the apostle's 
teaching concerning justification, that is to say, acquittal at 
the coming judgment.^ Obviously that great good is one 
not of experience, but of anticipation and hope. The judg- 
ment has not taken place, and yet the Christian was assured 
that he was to be acquitted when he appeared before the bar 
of God. Paul taught that the basis of this acquittal was in 
no way Judaism. The Jew as well as the heathen was with- 
out hope of acquittal. He had kept the law no more than 
had the Greek. 

In speaking of justification it is to be borne in mind that, 
as in the matter of salvation, Paul does not deal with the 
removal of sin, but with the removal of guilt; that is, the 
liability to punishment.* It is also to be borne in mind that 
his entire doctrine is in the apologetic spirit against the 
claims of the Jew and of the Jewish Christian. And, in 

1 1 Cor. 15 : 24-27. 2 Eph. 4 : 7 f . ; 1 Cor. 12 : 11 ; Rom. 12 : 3, 6. 

3 The act of acquittal is Si/catwo-ts ; the declaration of Tightness, SiKatwju,a: the 
state of those SiKaioixevoL, SLKaioavvri, 

*Rom. 3:20, 21. The much-discussed phrase of Rom. 1:17, SiKatoavvr] 0eoi5, is 
most naturally translated " a state of acquittal given by God," not "righteousness 
of God." The context makes it evident that the contrast is not between moral states, 
but between guilt and acquittal. See Sanday and Headlam, Commentary on 
Bomans, in loco. 



194 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the third place, it should be borne in mind that justification 
was not a matter of experience, but of assurance. The 
believer is assured of the fact that he is not to be condemned 
but is to be delivered at the approaching world-judgment. 
In this sense he is justified. 

It was this latter fact that lay behind the great discussion 
between Paul and the primitive church. In each alike there 
was the hope of acquittal at the messianic judgment. But 
in Paulinism the assurance of such acquittal was complete 
without recourse to supplementing virtues of Mosaism. Men 
were justified by faith and by faith alone.^ 

What, then, was this faith on the basis of which the 
judge would acquit the believer? The answer which Paul 
gives is exceedingly simple: the acceptance of Jesus as 
Lord — that is, as Christ — involving as it did the belief that 
God had raised him from the dead.^ That this initiatory 
acceptance of Jesus at the messianic valuation would grow 
richer and more inclusive is beyond question, but there was 
no condemnation for the man who had so accepted Jesus. 
Faith is therefore with Paul not a matter of mysticism; 
neither is it that which is something exclusively religious. 
It is the yielding of one's entire life to an interpretation of 
the historical Jesus. Strictly speaking, its ethical content 
is derived from the character ef Jesus. He who believed 
that Jesus is the Christ first of all needed to repent from 
his sins, and, in the second place, found in Jesus' own life, 
both on earth and in heaven, the basis of moral control. In 
the same proportion as one's interpretation of Jesus grew 
richer would his personality and the bearing of the facts of 
his life upon conduct grow more intense. But this larger 
faith was with Paul a matter of Christian growth, due to the 
in working of the Spirit. And in this spiritual life lay the 

1 It is unnecessary to give references here in detail. The teaching of Paul is on 
nearly every page of his letters. Gal. 2 : 15-21 is a good summary of his position. 
2 1 Cor. 12 : 3, and particularly Rom. 10 : 9, 10. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 195 

ground for assurance that the day of judgment was not to 
disclose disappointment. All those who had accepted Jesus 
as Christ and had been given the spirit were already treated 
by God as members of the messianic kingdom. So much 
was the indubitable evidence of their Christian experience. 
They had the Spirit of God, the same Spirit that had been 
in Jesus himself. It was inconceivable, therefore, that they 
could be treated by God at the judgment as other than 
members of the messianic kingdom. They could rest in 
peace as they anticipated that great day of the Lord. 

Thus back of the messianic schema at its most vital point 
is seen the evidence of the religious life.^ The judgment 
day was inherited from Jewish messianism ; justification was 
also; but the assurance of such justification was not an 
inheritance — it was born of the conscious life of the Chris- 
tian. Again we are face to face with a fact and an interpre- 
tation. Only in this case the interpretation, when confronted 
with the fact, gave rise to a problem. 

VI 

There came from the junction of the indubitable facts of 
Christian experience and the Jewish conception of Jehovah 
as a God of law, a difficulty. The Christians were convinced 
that they had been sinners, and that they were still doing 
those things that were wrong; and Paul, on his part, was 
convinced that such a liability to sin was to continue as long 
as men were possessed of the flesh. And yet over against 
this consciousness of continued desert of punishment was 
the assurance of acquittal at the coming judgment. Had 
then God become indifferent to his own moral requirements ? 
How could he have been just in declaring that the soul that 
sinned should die, and yet permit certain sinners to overcome 
death? How could he at the same time prescribe death as 

1 Gal. 3:1-6; cf. Rom. 8 : 33-39. 



196 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

a punishment and also make it a release from evil conditions 
and the entrance into ineffable blessings ? 

To this question, characteristic only of minds filled with 
the survivals of Mosaism, Paul replied by an appeal to a 
historic fact. As messianic expectation had given rise to 
the problem, so the messianic faith gave its answer. And 
this answer was very simple. Jesus died, not as an ordinary 
martyr, but in his capacity as Christ. Any act, whether or 
not technically messianic, when performed by him obtained 
supreme value from the fact that the Christ performed it.* 
Now the Christ had died ; that is, he had himself endured that 
change which the law had declared should come as punish- 
ment for sin. As the Christ he had not himself committed 
sin.^ The penalty of sin, therefore, death, came upon him 
vicariously. As the head of a kingdom composed of all 
those who accepted him as Christ, he could be regarded as 
representing his subjects. Such a representative and vica- 
rious relationship^ would have been familiar to all those who 
recalled the history of punishment inflicted upon the king 
of rebellious subjects.* Now, those who had accepted Jesus 
as Christ are evidently treated by God as members of his 
kingdom, for they had been given his spirit. As therefore 
the king might bear the penalty for his subjects, Paul argued 
that God could be just while acquitting those who accepted 
Jesus as the Christ. The law that sin should bring death 
was vindicated in that the Christ himself, "in the like- 
ness of sinful flesh "^ the just for the unjust, submitted to 

1 This enables us to appreciate the si^ificance of Paul's conversion. He did 
not believe Jesus was the Christ because he had been killed. No such element lay 
in the Jewish messianism of his day. But when convinced by the "revelation" of 
Jesus that the Crucified One was Christ, he had in the events of Jesus' life 
material for the construction of a new theology and for the solution of questions 
arising from systematic treatment of the religious consciousness. 

2 2 Cor. 5:21. 3i Cor. 11:24; 2 Cor. 5:15; Rom. 5:6-8; Gal. 1:4. 

4 In the case of the Jews the punishment inflicted upon Aristobulus by Pompey 
must certainly have not quite passed out of mind. 
{"Eom. 8:3. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 197 

it. At the same time God would be free to express that love 
which wished to see all men saved rather than to see them 
perish. Evidently, therefore, the basis for the acquittal 
which the believer confidently expects, and the blessings 
which he already in part enjoys, is not the individual's 
righteousness, but the love of God as expressed in the death 
of Christ as his representative and as the representative of 
those who hold him to be the messianic king. In this 
sense the death of Jesus was a part of the great plan of God 
to deliver men from the death brought upon them by sin.^ 
Jesus was the Redeemer;^ and, with a striking use of the 
sacrificial figure, the propitiatory sacrifice of the world.^ 
This crucified and risen Mediator Paul made the center of 
evangelization.* The Christ had not been forced to death by 
divine decree. He had freely submitted to incarnation and 
its consequent humiliation and sufferings.^ The blessings 
of divine acquittal came to a man, not because he was 
incipiently righteous, but because he had accepted Jesus as 
Christ. The death of Christ did not make God gracious, 
but exhibited his right to be gracious.^ A man was not to be 
saved because he was good, but he was to be good because 
he was to be saved — in fact, was already saved. 

How thoroughly forensic this conception is has been 
recognized by all interpreters who have not preferred to find 
in Pauline thought more modern and less figurative elements.^ 
The origin of the concept has not so generally been recog- 
nized. Why the death of Christ was necessary Paul never 

lEph. 1:4; Eom. 8:29. 2 Gal. 3:10, 13. 

3 Rom. 3:21-31; discussed by Dalmann, The Words of Jesus, pp. 124-35. 

41 Cor. 1:17, 18; 2:2; Gal. 3:1. Whether Paul made the doctrine of the atone- 
ment central in his evangelization is doubtful. It seems rather to belong to Chris- 
tian " edification." And even in his letters Paul's references to the matter are more 
by way of allusion than by discussion. Compare his treatment of the atonement 
with that he gives the resurrection of the believers. 

5 Rom. 8:32. 6 Rom. 3:26. 

7 As, for example, Gould, Biblical Theology of the Neio Testament, pp. 66-79 
See also Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, especially pp. 38-85 and chap. 8. 



198 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

discusses. He had the fact to use in the interest of Christian 
hope and life. He did not and could not have reached his 
doctrine of the atonement a priori. The modern mind, which 
does not think of God's relation to the world in monarchical 
and judicial terms, is naturally perplexed when it attempts to 
reconstruct this section of Pauline teaching. But it will be 
a sad mistake, if, because we recognize the fact that the 
problem came from a controlling thought that has passed 
away, we should ignore the Pauline teaching. The problem 
to which Paul set himself is one which is much greater than 
that particular form given it by the messianic schema of 
thought. It is the everlasting problem of the relation of 
the God of law to the God of love. In particular it is the 
question of the meaning of death and of the possibility of 
some sort of advance through death. Whether one may or 
may not correlate the dissolution of personality with evil 
conduct of Adam or of one's self, the fact remains that it is 
the great enigma of human existence, for the modern man as 
well as for the primitive Christian. And for both there is 
hope in the death of Jesus. It is not merely that, in the 
same proportion as one gives Jesus a higher value, he finds 
encouragement in the thought that he submitted to inevi- 
table death without abandoning his faith in God as father. 
That in itself is inspiration. But a far larger truth lies in 
the fact that by submitting to death he has shown to the 
world by his resurrection that, through the love of God, to a 
life like his own, death is a step toward something larger 
and happier. To such a life death is transformed into an 
element of a beneficent teleology — one had almost said a 
beneficent evolutionary process. The Christ who had taken 
on the form of sinful fiesh, i. e., had assumed the dual 
personality of humanity — had, by virtue of the power of 
his spirit^ been released from the flesh and, sharing in 

lEom. 1:4. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 199 

the new life of the "spirit," is the first fruits of all those 
who, though in a less degree, honestly attempt to live the 
sort of life which he lived. They too are to be freed by 
death from the "flesh" to live in the "spirit" and the 
"spiritual body." They too like him will experience the 
joy that springs from the release of the spirit from the body, 
and its rehabilitation in a higher mode of existence. It is 
this that is set forth in messianic terms when Paul says that 
if the believer was reconciled by the death of Jesus, much 
more will he be saved by his life.^ In this sense Jesus was the 
new Adam. As Adam had been the first of a race of living 
souls, raising his descendants above the beasts though also 
bringing upon them death; so Jesus, by his resurrection 
and by the revifying power of the spirit (irvevjxa ^coottolovv) 
which he gives to men, is the first of a race of "spiritual" 
personalities — the inaugurator of a new stage in human ex- 
istence superior to that of merely physico-psychical humanity.^ 
Justification and the atonement are the messianic forms 
taken by truths which are capable of any philosophical inter- 
pretation which correlates their content with a belief in the 
historical Jesus — truths which make it possible for any man, 
whether or not he be controlled by the messianic appercep- 
tion, to believe that the God of love is the God of law, and 
that the God of law is the God of love. And this belief 
comes through a knowledge of the death and resurrection of 
Jesus. ^ 

VII 

If we pass to the details of the Pauline forecast of escha- 
tological salvation, we are at once struck with the fact that 
it is a generalization of his Christology. The immortality of 

1 Eom. 5 : 10. This of course is his glorified life, not that lived in the flesh. 

2 1 Cor. 15: 22, 45. 

3 For a popular presentation of current theological thought on this subject see 
The Atonement in Modern Thought, by a number of leading theologians. 



200 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the entire personality had been assured by the experience of 
Jesus. That for which the believer waited was not merely 
the triumph of right over wrong; it was such a change in 
his own personality as would make it possible for him to live 
like the risen Christ, freed from the flesh, from attacks of sin, 
and from suffering and death. To be "justified" was to live 
in the joyous assurance of the certainty of this glorious 
mode of personal existence revealed by Jesus. 

Paul never shows himself more thoroughly sane than in 
his discussion of the details of the Christian's future. It is 
not difficult to see here the influence of the positive histori- 
cal data which were furnished by the resurrection of Jesus. 
The apocalypses of Judaism never shrank from the wildest 
sort of imaginations concerning the future. As a result 
they were very often absurd. It would be hard, indeed, to 
bring, for instance, the expectations of the Enoch literature 
into line with facts made known to us by scientific investi- 
gation. While it would be presumptuous to say that there 
is no difficulty in correlating the Pauline expectation of the 
spiritual body with scientific facts, it must at the same time 
be admitted that there is nothing absurd in his positions. 
He distinctly^ claims to be ignorant of just how the body of 
the new life differs from the physical body. Resurrection 
is certainly not re-animation. His controlling conviction is 
that it belongs to a new order of life ; it is "spiritual" whereas 
the body that is separated from the spirit at death is "psy- 
chical," i. e., animal. As stars differ in glory, so the body of 
the resurrection will differ from the body that dies.^ No man 
can read the Pauline forecast of the future, as we find it, in 
his letters to the Corinthians, without sharing in the enthu- 
siasm with which he looks forward to the great change which 
is to come to all men, either by death or by miracle. And 

1 1 Cor. 15 : 30. 

2 See the discussion in 1 Cor., chap. 15, and 2 Cor. 5: 1-10. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 201 

for the man whose apperception is controlled by evolntionary 
hypothesis, strangely enough, nothing seems more familiar. 
It is the everlasting process of life from order to order that 
Paul here recognizes. The life that he lived, according to 
the intimations of the Spirit of God, will find itself passing 
on to a higher form of existence in which the animal sur- 
vivals are wanting and the spirit is supreme. 

And the basis of his recognition, and that which gives it 
value above all apocalyptic expectation, is that it is built 
upon the historical experience of the Christ. Christianity 
as Paul presents it is something more than a religious phi- 
losophy. It is a generalization of certain distinct facts. It 
is not merely a product of religious experience ; it is also the 
source of religious experience. If it be replied that such an 
interpretation puts the gospel at the mercy of historical 
facts, the only reply is that to Paul's mind it was these his- 
torical facts that constituted it the gospel. If Christ were 
not raised from the dead, then nobody was raised from the 
dead, and the whole world was still liable to the results of 
sin. The Christian himself was of all men most miserable, 
because he had not only lost the hope of salvation, but he 
had made God a liar, by asserting that God had raised Jesus 
from the dead. 

Dominated by this element of fact, the eschatological 
forecast of Paul was of necessity conservative. It is note- 
worthy that he does not attempt any elaborate discussion of 
the judgment, or of the condition of those who die before 
the coming of the Lord, or of the reason for the Christ's 
delay, or of the New Jerusalem, or in fact of most of those 
matters about which Christian curiosity has always been so 
keen. Paul was not a sensationalist in religion, nor was he 
interested in satisfying the curiosity of humanity. He knew 
that the future was dependent upon a man's relation to God. 
He did not know exactly what the future life was to be, but 



202 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

he did know that the man who had placed himself in the 
right relation with Grod would find it blessed and like that 
already enjoyed by Jesus. 

Various attempts have been made to extract from scat- 
tered sayings and words of the apostle more precise details as 
to the future. What, for example, is the relationship between 
the body of flesh and the spiritual body? Some have 
detected inconsistencies^ in the various answers which Paul 
gives to this question. On the one side he apparently 
speaks of the physical body as being transformed by the 
spirit so as to pass into a new body.^ On the other hand he 
speaks of the body which is already prepared for the Chris- 
tian in heaven,^ into which the permanent element of the 
personality, after having left the physical body, will enter 
and be clothed upon by the spiritual. If, however, one 
refuses to push these various expressions into a system, this 
inconsistency does not appear very great. In either case 
they are phases of the common belief upon which Paul does 
not dogmatize, that the personality continues, and that a 
spiritual body replaces the physical, the struggle between the 
flesh and the spirit is ended, and, through the power of 
God, the believer lives in a new, a higher, and a more joy- 
ous order of life.* 

So too as regards the condition of those who die. Do 
they immediately take on the body of the resurrection, or do 
they remain in an intermediate state awaiting the coming of 
the Lord? Here again there is no express uniformity of 
expression, but nothing of sufficient importance to warrant 
one's believing that Paul's opinions went through radical 
stages. Bearing in mind the fact that he expected that the 
coming of Jesus would be soon, the matter was one of no 

1 So, c. gr., Chables, Eschatology, chap. 11, esp.ecially p. 399. 

2Eom. 8:11. a 2 Cor, 5:1-8. 

* 1 Cor. IZ : 46 and indeed the entire chapter as well as 2 Cor. 4 : 7—5 : 10. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 203 

particular importance, except as it involved the actual resur- 
rection of the dead. Evidently his position was different from 
that of those who have come to believe that this so-called 
intermediate state might continue for hundreds, if not mil- 
lennia, of years. In view of Paul's relationship to current 
Jewish thought in general it is probable that, as he was con- 
vinced that flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom 
of God,^ he must have believed that the dead Christians were 
with all the rest of the dead in Sheol, whence they would be 
called at the coming of the Lord; they would be raised 
literally, not from the grave, but from the underworld. 

Again as regards the question of the fate of the wicked, 
there have been those who have found in Pauline expressions 
ground for holding that all those who are evil would be anni- 
hilated, that the reign of Christ might be supreme. No 
man can come to the Pauline thought from the study of its 
Jewish antecedents and share such a view. Annihilation 
is not to be found in the Jewish thought. The destruction 
and loss which the wicked enjoy is that of the body, and of 
the blessings of the messianic reign. So far from being 
annihilated they remain in Sheol suffering punishment. 
Paulinism involves a limitation of the resurrection, but there 
is not one element in it that can legitimately be urged to 
favor the annihilation of the wicked.^ 

And, finally, the Pauline picture of the consummation of 
all things is drawn with but a few lines. Here, as every- 
where throughout his teaching there is the reticence which 
is born of a regard for facts. The messianic age proper was 

11 Cor. 15:50. 

2 On the other hand, attempts have been made to show that Paul expected that 
all men would be saved. Such a view rests on Rom. 5:1; 1 Cor. 15:21, 22, 28; Eph. 
1 : 10; but is contradicted by the entire scope of the Pauline thought. The universal 
admission of the lordship of Jesus in Phil. 2 : 9-11 proves nothing to the contrary. 
Even enemies would be forced to admit the messianic conquest. The iroWoi of 
1 Cor. 15 : 21, 22 marks simply the distinction between Adam and the Christ on the 
one side and the social results of each one's act on the other. See good discussion 
in Kennedy, -S^. PauVs Conceptions of the Last Things, pp. 309 f. 



204 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

to pass over into the great period of God's absolute suprem- 
acy, and with this the apostle rested content.' With the 
assurance of release from the flesh, from guilt, from punish- 
ment, from sin, from suffering, and from death, the future 
held for him only an eternity of joy. Salvation was more 
than a theological term, it denoted an actual condition and 
mode of life into which he who had received the spirit of God 
was to enter. Death had been overcome; had been swal- 
lowed up in victory. The believer was saved, not partially, 
but as a complete personality.^ 

VIII 

It therefore appears that eschatological hopes centering 
in Jesus were dominant in Paul, and that in so far as the 
apostle was without actual historical data to force modifica- 
tions, these hopes were essentially the same as those of the 
general apocalyptic movement. It also is apparent that the 
exposition and development of those elements of Paul's 
thought that rested wholly upon the inherited messianic 
interpretation will be really of power only in those ages in 
which the religious apperception to which the gospel appeals 
is the same as that to which Paul himself appealed. Speak- 
ing roughly it may be said that this religious apperception 
continued with unimportant modifications until modern times. 
Recently the rise of an entirely new conception of the uni- 
verse through the philosophy born of the new physical 
sciences is rapidly removing this apperception. The ques- 
tion, therefore, as to whether Paulinism has any message to 
the religious thought of today is one of critical importance. 

11 Cor. 15:23-25. In my opinion it is idle to attempt to build up a complete 
chronological program of the future from the words of these verses. 

2 Was then this glorious heavenly kingdom to be on earth? There is no evi- 
dence that Paul so expected unless we determine a priori that his silence is to be 
filled wdth the vocalizations of contemporary thinkers, e. g., Eth. Enochs 72 :1, or make 
central such a passage as Eom. 8 : 18-23. 



Theological Aspects of Pauline Messianism 205 

Any answer to this question must consider those elements in 
Paulinism which are the outcome not of the inherited mes- 
sianic concept, but of the actual facts of Christian experience. 
Such facts rather than their interpretations can certainly be 
correlated with other facts of any age whatever its temper, 
and it is to these that we should now give attention. 
For as in the teaching of Jesus a life of love and faith in 
God was superior to messianic conceptions, and as in primi- 
tive Christianity the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ of 
eschatological hopes led to new spiritual enthusiasm and 
deepened religious experiences ; so in Paulinism the acceptance 
of Jesus as Christ was but a forerunner of the reception of 
the Spirit of Christ. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST ACCORDING TO PAUL 
EscHATOLOGY, central as it is in Paulinism, is a hope. 
Except in so far as it was a generalization of the experiences 
of Jesus it was only a hope. We have seen to what extent 
in the case of Paul this hope was a representation of the 
inherited faith of his people, and the question immediately 
arises as to the meaning of his thought to those who do not 
share in such an inheritance. The answer to this question 
has already been incidentally stated repeatedly. Eschato- 
logical messianism is not the material but the form of Paul- 
inism. Face to face with the questions with which men of 
all times have grappled, he found his answer not in the 
speculation of the apocalyptic writings, but in two great 
groups of facts. On the one side was Jesus with his life 
and teaching and resurrection; on the other was Christian 
experience. The kingdom had indeed not appeared, but 
eternal life was a fact. It is to this second element that 
any student who attempts a systematic presentation of Paul- 
inism must give large attention. For as "salvation" was a 
completion of life, so before the consummation he expected 
one was to live the sort of life he awaited. 



Attention has already been called to the fact that the 
certainty of justification at the coming judgment is a matter 
of inference from the fact of Christian experience. It is 
not to be confused with the eternal life. The actual rela- 
tion of a justified man and God is described by Paul with- 
out recourse to forensic analogies in two ways. In the first 
place, starting from the idea of the enmity which existed 

20S 



New Life in Christ aocoeding to Paul 207 

between the sinner and God during the time when the 
former was liable to divine punishment, Paul describes the 
new relation of the two as one of reconciliation. Which of 
the two parties is conceived of by him as taking the initia- 
tive he does not state explicity, but probably, it would be 
most in accord with his thought to think that the love of 
God seen in the death of Christ had removed all obstacles,^ 
to the establishment of friendship between God and man 
which sprang from the sovereignty of God. In such case 
God may very properly be said to be reconciled to men, and 
the apostle conceived of as being intrusted with the ministry 
of reconciliation whose message would be a plea that men 
be reconciled to God.^ At the same time, this reconcilia- 
tion would not be consummated until the man repented and 
became a member of the heavenly kingdom through faith. 
And it is never conceived of by Paul as merely figurative. 
It is genuinely vital, the establishment of actual personal 
relations between God and man. It is not an external affair ; 
it is as truly an interpenetration of personalities as is friend- 
ship, and even more pregnant with results. He who is 
reconciled is "in Christ." 

It is easy, therefore, to understand why Paul should 
speak of the new relation of the Christian to his God as one 
of adoption or sonship, vloOeaia.^ He is doubtless here 
affected by two contemporary concepts: On the one side 
there is the Koman adoption by which one who was not an 
actual member of a family became such by the act of the 
paterfamilias; and on the other hand he is in accord with 
the Jewish idea by which members of the kingdom of God 
were spoken of as sons of God.* But this filial relationship 
is a reality of experience. It springs from the new 

1 2 Cor. 5 : 18. 2 Rom. 5 : 11 ; 2 Cor. 5 : 18-20. 

3Eph. 1:5; Gal. 3:7, 26; Rom. 8:29. See Ramsay. Hist. Com. on Galations, on 
fiia^^KTj in Roman and Syrian law. 
4 Pss. Sol., 17 : 30 ; cf. Rom. 9 : 4. 



208 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

indwelling of the spirit of God — the realization of God in 
consciousness. It is the spirit by which both Jew and Gentile 
cried "Abba Father,"^ and lead a Godlike life. Indeed, 
Paul never utilizes the general philosophical thought of the 
universal sonship of God to which he refers in the speech 
at Athens.^ Sonship with him as with Jesus is a genuinely 
religious concept, and one that involves the resurrection of 
the body. Men are sons of God in that they are to be 
saved; i. 6., through having the Spirit they are to be trans- 
formed into a mode of life that is like God's, holy and 
independent of the flesh. ^ 

This twofold exposition of the relation of the believer 
in Jesus and God is not inconsistent. Its two phases but 
accent the fundamental element of salvation, the realization 
of supreme personal welfare after death in a dual personal- 
ity (spiritual body and spirit) resulting from the working of 
God in the personality before death. From this conception 
of personal well-being and the possibility of eternal devel- 
opment, the approach to a genuine and peculiarly Christian 
ethics is easy. Ethics becomes a formulation of directions 
for the ever more complete adjustment of one's person and 
conduct to the new element of consciousness won through 
faith in Jesus as Christ — God. 

Before discussing the center of the Pauline teaching as 
to life and conduct, it will be advisable first of all to recall 
distinctly the fact that while. faith according to Paul is, in 
its first exercise, the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ of 
the apocalyptic hopes, the life of the believer was funda- 
mentally moral. Ethical ideals were inseparable from his 
hope. "The word of the Lord" was as imperative now that 
the Lord was Jesus the Christ as when the Lord had been 

1 Rom. 8 : 14, 15 ; Gal. 4 : 6-15. 2 Acts 17 : 28. 

3 Rom. 8 : 19-23, 29. Sonship was a familiar way of expressing moral likeness, 
e.g., viol T>j? aTretSeias, Eph. 2 : 2 ; 5:6; vtbs 5ia,86Aou, Acts 18:10; vibs aTrwAeias, John 1-7 : 
12; viol (jtujTO'; Kal viol rifjiepcLs, 1 Thess. 5:5; cf. John 12:36. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 209 

Jehovah. Indeed nothing could be more contradictory than 
to suppose that the very people who saw in Jesus the supreme 
representative of the sovereign God should hold that his 
teachings as regards conduct were without authority. The 
fact that Paul does not often quote these teachings of Jesus 
or refer to them should not blind us to the fact that they 
were in possession both of himself and of his churches.^ 
His failure to appeal to them was undoubtedly intentional, 
and due to his attitude toward law as a means of achieving 
acquittal in the day of judgment, but really to believe in 
Jesus as Christ was inevitably to undertake to live according 
to his teaching. An unrepentant man could not believe in 
Jesus, and a believing man would try to be good. Thus 
faith, even in its inceptive form, presupposed and involved 
morality. It was not only an intellectual conviction that 
Jesus was the Christ; it was also to live as if he were the 
Christ. 

The first Christian community was made up almost ex- 
clusively of those who had been associated with Jesus during 
his work in Galilee. Therefore, however heartily they 
accepted him as the one who was in the future to fulfil their 
hopes of the Messiah, they must also have been affected to a 
considerable extent by his religious instruction. To think 
of them in any other way would be contrary to every prob- 
ability. It would be a most extraordinary contradiction if 
those who preserved the tradition of the life and words of 
Jesus should have been utterly unaffected by his teaching. 
In accepting Jesus as Messiah they had passed through a 
moral crisis, in the midst of which they had dedicated them- 
selves unreservedly to the service of their brotherhood, their 
Master, and their heavenly Father. 

During the life of Jesus this dedication on the part of 
the group of men and women who constituted the nucleus 

1 For a discussion of this matter in detail see Feine, Jesus Christus und Paulus. 



210 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

of the Jerusalem community had taken the form of an 
abandonment of daily occupation, if not of wealth, and some 
attempt was made at rectification of wrongs done in earlier 
days.^ In any case, none would think of denying that the 
acceptance of Jesus as Christ was accompanied by a moral 
renewal. From the days of John the Baptist, preparation 
for the coming judgment and the heavenly kingdom involved 
a moral change that could find its guarantee in works of 
mercy and righteousness. The first recorded message of 
Jesus as he took up the work of the Baptist was the same 
call to repentance. Faith in the new preaching was the 
very antipodes of cold, intellectual assent. Indeed, Jesus 
was eager to rid himself of men who were without this moral 
renewal.^ Apostolic preaching like that of John and Jesus' 
made repentance the first requirement of the convert. Peter 
and Paul were here at one. Moral revolution was indis- 
pensable for acceptance both in the kingdom and in the 
church. 

In the apostolic age, faith in Jesus was uniformly fol- 
lowed by spiritual ecstasy and other striking experiences, 
concerning which many questions naturally arise. If we 
waive them for the present, the mere fact itself grows in sig- 
nificance. The initial experience of this sort is represented 
in Acts as having occurred seven weeks after the resurrection 
which finally fixed the apostolic faith in Jesus as Messiah. 
But it is to be remembered that, according to the same 
authority, Jesus was occasionally with the disciples during 
forty days of this interval. Their complete possession by 
the conviction of his final disappearance into heaven, that is, 
of his complete messiahship, was therefore practically con- 
temporary with the beginning of new experiences. In the 

iThus in the case of Zacchseus (Luke 19:8), though he never became one of the 
intimate friends of Jesus. 

2 Compare the remarkable instance in the sixth chapter of the fourth gospel, as 
well as Jesus' explanation of his use of parables in Mark 4: 12. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 211 

case of those who subsequently believed, these spiritual 
phenomena followed immediately either the beginning of 
faith itself or the act of baptism or the first laying on of 
hands. 

Thus from the beginning of Christian history Christian 
experience was the accompaniment and result of Christian 
faith. The two were mutually supporting, and both were 
elements of messianism as it appeared in apostolic Chris- 
tianity. 

It was characteristic of the new community that their new 
experiences should have been given a messianic explanation.' 
It was not enough simply to recognize the new impulses born 
of a new and confident approach to God. Centuries before, 
the prophets had foretold that then God would pour out his 
spirit upon all men. This prophecy Peter and the other 
disciples saw fulfilled in their new enthusiasm and ecstasy.^ 
The Christ was, indeed, absent, but they had not been left 
comfortless. During these days in which they awaited the 
return of their Lord they had been given the Spirit, the first 
instalment of their future inheritance.^ From Pentecost the 
reception of the Spirit was an integral part of the new 
messianic hope. It was not only an argument for the newly 
acquired authority on the part of Jesus ; to possess the Spirit 
was the one indubitable evidence of one's justification by 
God, and of one's certain membership in the coming king- 
dom.* 

1 How generally a revival of prophetism was expected in the messianic period 
may be seen possibly in the general hope of Elijah's coming, in the expectation of 
some prophet (1 Mace. 4:46), and quite as plainly in the fact that the various popu- 
lar leaders of the first century presented themselves as prophets, e. gr., Theudas 
(JosEPHTJS, Ant., XX, 5:1), and the Egyptian (Ant., xx, 8:6) ; cf. Gunkel, WirJcungen 
des heiligen Geistes, pp. 53-56. 

2 Acts 2:14-36; 3:21. 

3 Cf. Eph. 1 : 14 and Acts 20 : 32. 

* Acts 10: 44-47; 11:17,18; c/. 15:8, 9; Gal. 3:2. 



212 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

II 

In Pauline teaching and practice the elements of this 
messianism of the primitive Christians are clearly evident: 
the one formal and interpretative, derived from current 
messianism ; the other experiential, the result of the religious 
trust and consequent divine renewal induced by the accept- 
ance of Jesus as the fulfiller of messianic hopes. The dis- 
tinction is fundamental in Paul, for with him the appeal to 
spiritual experience is final. In his own case this experi- 
ence had been revolutionary. He had been "apprehended" 
by the Christ, and in the change from his old to his new 
life lay the subject-matter for much of his teaching. His 
conversion had consisted in the substitution, not of one the- 
ology for another, but of one life for another. Reduce this 
experience and its implications to words, and there is ob- 
tained one of the two great foci of Paulinism: the new life 
of the believer, due to the presence of Grod. 

It would be a grievous misinterpretation of the apostle's 
thought if one should at this point identify the regenerate 
life itself with the so-called "gifts of the Spirit."' The 
psychological conceptions of early Christianity are farthest 
possible from those of today. The air that covered the flat 
earth was full of bodiless spirits, some good, some evil, but 
all, though especially the latter, liable to enter into men. 
Demoniacal possession was, however, no more accepted as a 
true explanation of phenomena like epilepsy, hemorrhage, 
deafness, insanity, and boils, than the coming of God's 
Spirit was believed to be the explanation of certain other 
phenomena quite as remarkable, if less painful. We are too 
far removed from the first generation of Christians, and the 
data at our disposal are too vague, to warrant a very confi- 
dent constructive statement as to what these "gifts" may 

1 See the elaborate article by Schmiedel in Encyclopaedia ^ifeiica on " Spirit- 
ual Gifts." 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 213 

have been, but we may confidently infer from the apostle's 
words what they were not. When one sees the final editor 
of Acts himself somewhat at a loss to understand "tongues,'^ 
if one were to judge from his description of the phenomena 
of Pentecost, caution grows all the more imperative in 
explaining the gifts of tongues, interpretations, miracles, 
and prophesying so familiarly discussed by Paul in his cor- 
respondence with the church at Corinth. Yet, however one 
may confess his ignorance in the matter, however one may 
speculate as to their precise symptoms, as to whether they 
were pathological, as to whether they are properly to be 
considered as permanent elements of Christian experience, 
one thing stands out with perfect distinctness: Paul regards 
them only as secondary and inferior evidences of the new 
life. The least valuable of them all — "tongues" — was 
unfitted for "edification;" while the most desirable — 
"prophesying" — was itself far inferior to the "more excellent 
way" of brotherly love.^ In other words, Paul regarded the 
work of the Spirit in human life as essentially moral. God's 
life in those who had chosen Jesus as Christ, and who were 
seeking to live according to his teaching, was destined to 
produce moral change and growth; not sensational actions. 
It was a source of character, not of omniscience.^ 

Paul treats this new life from two points of view: (1) It 
is conceived of eschatologically as the earthly counterpart 
and beginning (fco?) amvios:) of the ideal proposed by his 
messianic hopes. In the resurrection of Jesus Paul saw 
something that was to be enjoyed by all believers. The 
Christ had but anticipated his kingdom, and the time was 
soon to come when all those who had accepted him were to 
put on immortality and enter upon an eternity of righteous- 
ness made possible by the end of the tyranny of the body.^ 

ilCor. 12:1— 14:39. 2 i Cor. 13 : 9-12. 

3 See Phil. 3:21 and the entire argument in 1 Cor., chap. 15. 



214 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

During the brief period^ of waiting for this deliverance, the 
Christian was to endeavor to live the sort of life which was 
to be his in the new kingdom. Here is evidently a formal 
ethical ideal which, though somewhat indistinct, has yet an 
appreciable ^ content for the believer in the risen Jesus. 
Paul constantly uses it as a basis of ethical appeal. "If ye 
are risen with Christ," he urges the Colossians,* "think the 
thoughts that pertain to things above where Christ sits." 
He tells the Eomans to subordinate physical pleasures, on 
the ground that the kingdom of God is not to be character- 
ized by eating and drinking, but by love, joy, and peace in 
the Holy Spirit.^ And, perhaps as striking as anything, he 
repeatedly urges that, as the Christian is a citizen of the 
new kingdom, he is to live as if he already possessed the 
privileges of that kingdom. His citizenship is in heaven.* 
For the one who does so live, beating down his grosser 
nature, living according to his future, reward is certain. He 
who lived to the flesh was to die, but he who lived according 
to the Spirit was to live the son of Grod, fellow-heir with 
Christ, the future possessor of the redeemed body.* 

But (2) the new life is also morally dynamic, and the 
basis of the Christian's ethical imperative. He is not 
wholly dependent upon the presentation of a heavenly ideal. 
Incomplete though it was, the life to be lived in the full 
presence of God had already begun in the believer. Due 
as it was to divine influence, it was to be supreme in all his 
conduct. Paul here carries to its legitimate ethical conclu- 
sions the doctrine of the Spirit's presence. His approach 
is, as always, through his eschatology ; the Spirit is the first 
instalment of the inheritance awaiting the members of the 
coming kingdom. Through him it was that "gifts" came 
to men, it was the Spirit that directed the church, that 

1 Eom. 13 : 11-14 ; c/. 1 Thess. 4 : 15-17 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 51. 

2 Col. 3:1. 3 Rom. 14:17. 

* Phil. 3 : 20. 6 Rom. 8 : 12-25 ; c/. vss. 29, 30. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 215 

reinforced the believer's spirit in its desperate struggle with 
the "flesh," that pleaded with God for erring men, that 
helped men's infirmities, that would later quicken their 
mortal bodies into likeness with that of Jesus. ^ 

It is at this point that we see Paul in his profoundest and 
most influential mood. He shared to the uttermost in the 
ethical passion of the Pharisees. Life with him, as with 
them, got its full meaning in that completion which was to 
be the outcome of the judgment day. Morality was, there- 
fore, not a matter of speculation as to the origin of the 
moral sense, but one of determined endeavor to embody the 
will of God in one's personal relations. The method by 
which the Pharisee would accomplish this righteousness, or 
at least acquittal, is well known. The judge who was to 
determine the eternal destinies of mankind had graciously 
given to the Jew his Thorah. He who kept that law would 
live; and he who did not keep its provisions was already 
cursed. Theoretically, therefore, the matter was very simple : 
determine what the law demanded and meet its demands. 
"The oral law" of the scribes was the result. 

In their zeal to elevate Christian teaching, it has been 
usual for Christian scholars to belittle the pharisaic and 
rabbinic teaching at this point. It is, of course, possible to 
adduce sentences from the Mishna, and especially from the 
later rabbinic writings which are absurd and trivial, but he 
is a poor interpreter who is content with an over emphasis 
of such minutiae. Once grant pharisaism its great premise 
that a man's eternal destiny is set by his observance of the 
Thorah, and its attempt to extend the principles of that law 
in minute regulations is not only inevitable, but it is benefi- 
cent. If it is necessary, for example, for a man to observe 
the Sabbath by not working, it is certainly necessary for 
him to know when the Sabbath begins, and what is work and 

1 See admirable brief discussion in Sabatier, Religions of Authority, pp. 305 f . 



216 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

what is not work. For such a necessity there is no act in 
life which must not be defined as either permissible or for- 
bidden. The fact that the attempt so to "build a hedge 
about the law" resulted in a mass of rules and regulations 
which taxed beyond endurance memory and logical acumen 
is not to be given undue weight. If the principle be final 
that a man must do right because he is commanded to do 
right, the Talmud is the gospel of heteronomy. 

Further, the Pharisee just as truly as Paul saw the impos- 
sibility of keeping all the rules which were implied in the 
law of Moses, and attempted to meet this difficulty by antici- 
pating the Roman Catholic doctrine of supererogation. The 
absolute conformity to law being impossible, morality be- 
came a matter of accounting. If a Jew's good deeds ex- 
ceeded in number his evil deeds, especially if he had seen 
suffering, the God of Israel could be trusted to let him enter 
the heavenly kingdom. If he failed of the balance of good 
deeds demanded, the excess virtues of Abraham and the 
Patriarchs might be counted to their descendants to make 
up the requisite proportion.^ Such a morality is evidently 
unsatisfactory from both the theoretical and the practical 
point of view. Yet it contains in it a suggestion of an ele- 
ment which Paul himself appropriated, namely, the grace of 
God. Only in Paul's case the fundamental principle of the 
Pharisee was attacked. The acquittal could not come from 
keeping the law, and must come in another way. This 
acquittal we have already seen came to those who accepted 
Jesus as Christ and so were treated even before the judg- 
ment as members of the messianic kingdom. The ethical 
question which remained may be stated baldly thus: Why 
should a man be good who no longer was afraid of death 
and hell? In other words, what is the great moral impera- 
tive? 

1 See Weber, Judische Theologie, chap. 19. 



New Life in Chkist according to Paul 217 

Paul's significance as an ethical teacher lies in the fact 
that he denied the finality of statutory law. Confronted 
with the question as to the seat of moral authority, he 
replied: It is God as he is known in the believer's life. It 
is not merely personality that Paul thus makes the moral 
autocrat; it is the Spirit — that element of the human per- 
sonality in which the human is surcharged with the divine.^ 

Paul's position at this point explains why he does not 
appeal more strenuously to the teaching of Jesus. Having 
abandoned his earlier hope of winning an acquittal at the 
messianic judgment by conscientious observance of the law, 
he would be the last man to replace the Thorah with a new 
series of rules, either of his own devising or derived from 
the words of Jesus. That would be to discredit faith, and 
by faith, as he told the Corinthians in one of his most strenu- 
ous passages, the Christian stood.^ As long as one was true 
to the faith he had professed in Jesus as the Messiah of the 
future kingdom, he was beyond the reach of even apostolic 
authority. At the same time, however, Paul gave his judg- 
ments as one who had obtained mercy of the Lord to be 
worthy of trust,^ and these "judgments" may very well have 
been understood as authoritative advice regarding the form 
and direction in which the new life of the Christian should 
be given expression. Paul further magnified his official 
position in matters in which the religious element was at a 
minimum, and did not hesitate to deliver over to Satan an 
evil-doer for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit 
might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.* None the 
less, however, even to the recalcitrant Corinthians he pro- 
tests that he was but a master-builder who laid foundations, 
and that he and Apollos and Peter were but the stewards of 

1 The Christians in this sense are nvev/j-aTLicoi; 1 Cor. 2:13-15; Gal. 6:1. So, too, 
the body is to be nveviJ-arLKov after the destruction of the a-dp^; 1 Cor. 15: 44, 46. C/., 
for general statement, Eph. 1:3; Col. 1 : 9. 

22 Cor. 1:24. 3i Cor. 7:25. <lCor. 5:1-5. 



218 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the Christ to whom all believers belonged.^ The gospel was 
not a new law, and the life of faith was not to yield to a 
new legalism. It is "a perfect law of liberty" of which 
even James speaks.^ 

But even in the case of Christians Paul seems never to 
have abandoned the idea of the judgment. For them as for 
the angels it was inevitable. The presence of the Spirit 
argued that Christians would be acquitted, but they were 
not to be excused. They themselves because of their faith 
in Jesus were to be saved — possibly "as by fire" — but 
their works if unworthy of the Spirit were to be destroyed.^ 
However obscure such a distinction may appear, it is clear 
that Paul did not teach that the Christian was outside the 
region of moral law. Liberty was not to be an opportunity 
to the flesh.* Morality was not a negative matter, but 
positive, and in the same proportion as one followed the 
Spirit would he be kept from yielding to the flesh, and live 
the life of love.^ And this consideration brings us to the 
heart of the Pauline ethics. 

Once strip ofp Paul's peculiarly Jewish terminology, and 
he is the very Coryphasus of ethical autonomists. How 
otherwise could one designate the man who declared law 
had no more control over the Christian, whose letter to the 
Galatians is a veritable declaration of moral independence, 

1 1 Cor. 3 : 5, 8, 23 ; 4:1. The entire argument as to the apostolic prerogative in 
1 Corinthians is well worth consideration upon this point. 

2James 1:25; 2:12. 

3 1 Cor. 3:13f.; cf. Test. Abraham, 93:10; Apoc. 5ar., 48:29. 

* Gal. 5 : 13. 

5 It is noteworthy that, although Paul apparently does not conceive it possible 
that one who has once believed upon Jesus as Christ would be condemned at the 
judgment, the later New Testament writers are not possessed of the same assurance. 
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews believes that it is impossible to renew 
one who sins wilfully after receiving a knowledge of the truth ; for him there is no 
forgiveness, but a certainty of judgment, fierceness of fire ; Heb. 10 : 26, 27. Per- 
haps the basis of this is the author's belief that it is impossible to renew through 
repentance those who fall away after having once partaken of the Holy Ghost, and 
tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come ; Heb. 6 : 4, 8. 1 John 
1 : 19 charges apostasy to hypocrisy. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 219 

and who believed that the Christian had the mind of 
Christ?^ It is one of the curiosities of today's ethical 
thought that he who even more distinctly than Plato mag- 
nified the necessity of "walking in the Spirit" should have 
been utterly overlooked or relegated to the mercies of dog- 
matic theology. The neglect is, of course, due in large 
measure to the modern sensitiveness over appeals to rewards 
and punishments; but even more, one cannot help believing, 
to the unwillingness of ethical thinkers to accord religion 
any determining place in morality. To such philosophers 
Paul, with his insistence upon the active presence of God in 
a man's life, can hardly fail to be of little importance. Yet 
we venture to believe that Paul is near the heart of things 
when he insists upon the moral results of the interpenetra- 
tion of the divine and the human personalities. If there be 
a personal God, it is hard to see how he can be excluded 
from personal relations ; and why from such relations should 
there not result, as Jesus and Paul taught, a new moral life 
due to the effect of God's Spirit upon man's spirit? 

The danger here clearly is that one who looks thus to 
God for moral assistance should become morally inert. 
Paul, however, avoids this danger by his recognition of the 
distinction between influence and compulsion. Impulses 
the religious soul must receive from God, but as the plant 
is influenced by its environing sunshine. To make these 
impulses of moral worth, they must be followed and thus 
incorporated through volition into one's own personality. 
The non-moral "charismata," like tongues and miracles, are 
of value only when morally practiced.^ By following the 
impulses received from one's approach to God through 
faith, the believer becomes ethically a new man; old things 

12 Cor. 1:22; 5:15; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14. See also the profound discussion 
in Rom. 8:1-13. 

2 1 Cor., chap. 13. 



220 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

pass away, all things become new.^ As Paul said so strik- 
ingly, the new life he lived by faith was Christ living in 
him.^ The ethical imperative becomes therefore clear: from 
one point of view it may be expressed, "Grieve not the 
Spirit;"' from another, "Walk in the Spirit;"* from still 
another, "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set 
you free."^ Or, in un-Pauline words: Realize the new self 
made possible by the new life with Grod. Such a self might 
be described in non-messianic language as characterized by 
faith in a loving God, free from fear or future ill, self- 
sacrificing like Jesus, masterful over the animal instincts, 
brotherly and serviceable, full of love and joy and peace. 

It is characteristic of the apostle that he conceives of all 
this strictly religious experience under the personal mes- 
sianic formula: The believer is in Christ and Christ is in 
the believer.® It is noteworthy that he does not use the 
unofficial name Jesus. 'Ez^ Xpicrrft) expresses, not a friend- 
ship between individuals, but the dependence of a subject 
upon a king. Baptism symbolized something more than 
an ethical resurrection. It portrayed the change in the 
believer's personality by which he was assured of the resur- 
rection — i. e., of an experience like that of his Christ.^ He 
was in Christ in the sense that he had entered into the 
"spiritual" as distinct from the "fleshly" life,^ was 
redeemed,^ and was already a subject of the heavenly king. 
The relation was, therefore, less mystical than quasi-polit- 
ical.^° It was mystical only in the sense that the Christian 
life as a whole was mystical, i. e., dependent upon the inter- 
penetration of the human and the divine spirits. For the 
expression represents a fact of the Christian experience. 

12 Cor. 5:17. 2 Gal. 2:20. 3Eph. 4:30. 

*Gal. 5:16f. 5 Gal. 5:1. 6 The classical passage is Gal. 2 : 20. 

1 Cf. Rom. 6 : 3-9. 8 1 Cor. 3 : 1 ; c/, v. 3. 9 Cf. Rom. 8 : 24. 

10 Rom. 12 : 5. Cf. the figure of the Church as the " body of Christ " with individuals 
as its members, 1 Cor. 12 : 27. See also Gal. 3 : 2, 5, 14 ; Rom. 5:5; Eph. 1 : 13. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 221 

Christ was in believers in the sense that the Spirit of Christ 
— i. e., sent by him — was in them.^ The apostle had "the 
mind of Christ" in the sense that God had revealed "wisdom" 
to him through the Spirit.^ Indeed, Paul mostly uses eV 
X/OiCTTQ) as a sort of qualifying term expressive of the 
believer's new relations in general.^ 

But no one can fail to appreciate the reality in the 
Pauline conception of salvation and the achievement of the 
eternal life. Eternal life was, it is true, the supreme good 
of the pious Jew,* but in the usage of Paul and all the New 
Testament writers the term, like its correlate "kingdom of 
God," was filled with a new and non-national content. It 
was a state of the individual similar to that enjoyed by the 
Christ after his resurrection, and waiting for those who had 
been delivered from that death which was the result of sin.^ 
It was due ultimately to the realization of God in conscious- 
ness — a fact far above any philosophy by which it may be 
expressed or interpreted. The acceptance of Jesus as the 
supreme revelation of God contributed to such a new state 
of consciousness, and in this sense as truly as in any other 
he is Mediator. But any exposition must here be but rela- 
tive to the age which begets it. This highest good to which 
the believer looked was not born of Jewish messianism, how- 
ever much it may be colored by messianic hopes. Nor was 

1 The two expressions are identical in Rom. 8 : 9-11. The whole passage 8 : 1-17 is 
of first importance in this connection. 

2 1 Cor. 2 : 10-16. Paul carries this thought a step farther in 1 Cor. 3 : 1 f ,, when he 
declares that the Corinthians are only "babes in Christ" in the sense that they were 
"carnal." 

3Thus in Rom. 9:1; 15:17; 16:3,7,9,10; 1 Cor. 1:2; 4:10, 15; Eph. 1:3. For a 
somewhat different view of this entire matter see Sandat and Headlam, Com- 
mentary on Romans, pp. 162-66. 

4 Mark 10 : 17 ; Matt. 19 : 16 ; Luke 10 : 25. Bousset, Religion des Judentums, p. 399, 
denies, but too absolutely, that Jewish ethics were controlled by eschatology. For a 
truer statement see VOLZ, Jildische Eschatologie, pp. 326 f., 368, 369. Cf. Pss. Sol., 
14 : 10 ; Eth. Enoch, 37 : 4 ; 62 : 16 ; 65 : 10 ; Slav. Enoch, 42 : 3 (text of Sokolov) ; 4 Esdras, 
7 : 48 ; Apoc. Baruch, 54 : 12 ; 57 : 2 ; 85 : 10 ; Berachoth, 286 ; Pirqe Abvth, ii, 7 f . 

5 Rom. 6:23. 



222 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

it the child of Greek philosophy, an abstract hope of ethical 
victory. Nor is it born of a modern evolutionary philosophy. 
ZcoT) alcovLo<; with Jesus, with Paul, and with the modern 
man describes a fact of consciousness, a generalization of his- 
toric phenomena. It is at bottom not moral, but ontological 
with moral corrollaries. It is life — life in the fullest sense 
in which the present dualistic personality is preserved, but 
stripped of those animal survivals that pull men back to the 
beast. The flesh is to be forever gone — nay, one should 
already live as if it were dead.^ Holiness is involved in 
such a life, but no more truly than is a process of develop- 
ment we can only call hyper-physical.^ And this highest 
good, anticipated in part in the moral and religious growth 
of the Christian, is the ground of obligation.^ The Chris- 
tian is a new creation* due to the transformation by the 
Lord's Spirit.^ He is therefore to live as if already risen 
with Christ.' 

Ill 

Thus one comes to see more distinctly the relations exist- 
ing between Pauline and pharisaic messianism. The one is 
undoubtedly derived from the other; but that which was the 
essence of the older has become the interpretative medium 
of the newer hope. It was the regenerate life, the new 
religious dynamic born of the religious experience induced 
by the acceptance of Jesus as Christ, that distinguished 
Christianity from pharisaism, and which has given it his- 
torical vigor and pre-eminence. Paulinism as a fulfilled 
pharisaic messianism might have had vast influence among 

1 Eom. 8 : 12-17. 

2 So, too, TiTius, Neutestamentliche Lehre der Seligkeit, Vol. II, p. 76: "Es ist 
nicht eine rein etisch-religiOse, sondern eine zugleich hyperphysische Auffassung des 
Lebens, die er [Paul] in der Mittelpunkt gestellt hat." I am indebted to Titius for 
the term "hyper-physical." 

3 In general see Sokolowski, Die Begriffe von Geist und Leben bei Paulus 
*2Cor.5:17. 5 2 Cor. 3:8; Eom. 8:9-11. 6Col.3:l-17. 



New Life in Christ according to Paul 223 

the Jews, proselytes, and "devout"' gentiles of Palestine and 
the empire at large; but Paulinism as the exposition of the 
meaning, the blessings, and the ethical and ontological pos- 
sibilities of a life of trust in a loving heavenly Father is 
bounded by no age or place or archaeological knowledge. 
It is the veritable Christianity of Jesus himself. 

As a teacher of such a life, dynamic because dependent 
upon Grod, Paul has yet to come to his own. The historic 
theologies have, it is true, never neglected it; but they have 
made it secondary to an exposition of justification, an all 
but universally admitted forensic element in the apostle's 
thought, and one clearly derived from pharisaic messianism. 
Historical exegesis will increasingly reverse the process, and 
see, not in the survivals of pharisaism, but in the new life — 
the eternal life of Jesus — the permanent and all-inclusive 
element in Pauline teaching. Messianic faith led to a life 
regenerated by God himself. To trace the apostolic exposi- 
tion of the ethical and social implications of this new life is, 
therefore, to set forth essential Paulinism. But it is also to 
do something far more important: it is to make easy the 
process by which apostolic Christianity may be accurately 
re-expressed in our own day. For this "life of the Spirit" 
is interpreted, not caused by the Pauline philosophy and 
world view. It will continue and will be experienced by 
those who have faith in Jesus, whether they fail or succeed 
in mastering the apostolic exposition.^ 

1 It has not appeared necessary to preface the discussion of Paulinism with any 
general critical statement. Notwithstanding the tangential criticism of Van Manen 
and his school, the above discussion has used without question Romans, 1 and 2 
Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, Colossians, 
Ephesians, and Philemon. There are still questions of details connected with all of 
this literature, but not sufficient to warrant hesitation in its use as genuinely Paul- 
ine. The question of the Pastoral Epistles may still be regarded as open, but with a 
tendency toward the recognition of a strong Pauline element. 



CHAPTER V 
THE MESSIANISM OF POST-PAULINE CHRISTIANITY 

The history of Christianity after the death of Paul is in 
deep obscurity. That churches were founded everywhere 
about the Mediterranean is beyond question, but of their 
founding we know practically nothing. So, too, as regards 
the literature of the time. External as well as internal evi- 
dence forces us to assign a number of writings, mostly 
anonymous, to the fifty years succeeding the death of Paul, 
but it is as impossible to tell exactly the date of their com- 
position as to decide precisely as to their authorship. 

To this group of literature belongs a number of the most 
important writings in our canonical New Testament ; among 
them those now to be considered: the Synoptic Gospels (in 
their present form), Hebrews, the Fourth Gospel and the 
three epistles ascribed to John, the epistles of Jude and 
Peter. 

I 

In treating the teaching of Jesus it was shown that our 
synoptic gospels are the result of combining various groups 
of early collections of the words and the deeds of Jesus. At 
that time a distinction was drawn between these original 
materials and the present completed works. We have now 
to consider the gospels in their present completed form as 
indicating in themselves the general tendencies of the mes- 
sianic hope in the early church. 

It is impossible to state with precision the exact time of 
composition of the synoptic gospels.^ Specific external 

1 See in general JtJLiCHBR, Einleitung (English translation, Introduction) and 
the article by Schmiedel, " Gospels" in Encyclopaedia Biblia, as well as the parallel 
articles in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 

224 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 225 

evidence is wanting till the middle of the second century, 
and the critic is dependent, on the one side, upon quotations 
and "echoes," and, on the other, upon the internal evidence 
of the gospels themselves. Such data do not give us a 
definite terminus ad quern, but make it probable that all 
three ^ of the synoptic gospels reached their present form 
subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem, 70 A. D. As 
they now stand, they are finished compositions in which 
the original material has been subjected, not only to edi- 
torial selections, but to other editorial treatment. 

From the critical point of view, the strictly editorial 
material in the synoptics falls into three general classes. 
First, there are easily recognizable editorial additions in 
the way of comment or explanation.^ In the second place, 
there are variations in numerous sayings the original form 
of which can approximately be determined by a comparison 
of the various sources.^ And, third, there are details which 
are added to the original statements of Mark* or material 
which is substituted for sections of such material.^ 

In considering this material it is to be borne in mind 
that it springs from the second generation of Christians. 
The original materials of the gospels, as we have already 
seen, may be accepted as the work of the disciples of Jesus 
himself, but the synoptic gospels, as completed literary units, 
represent to a considerable degree the point of view of the 
church during the last quarter of the first century. Pauline 
literature antedates the synoptic gospels in their present 

1 This is generally admitted in the case of Matthew and Luke. Mark 13 : 20, to 
my mind, is conclusive also as to Mark. In this connection it is also worth while 
comparing Mark 13 : 14 with Matt. 24 : 15. In both cases the reference is most natur- 
ally seen to be to Titus's prof anation of the temple. Luke 21:20, however, though 
equally historical in its references is less objectional to a Roman world looking for 
evidence of Use majesU in Christians. 

SAsMark 7:19; 3:30. 

3 As in Matt. 16 : 16 ; Luke 9 : 20 ; cf. Mark 8 : 29. 

*As (TiiiixaTiK^ elSei. in Luke 3: 21. Cf. Mark 1 : 10. 

6 As Luke 5 : 1-11 for Mark 1 : 16-20. 



226 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

form, and its influence can hardly have been small. But 
the general point of view of the synoptic gospels is that 
which we have already seen in primitive and Pauline Chris- 
tianity. God's will was being done in heaven, but not upon 
earth. Jesus was reigning as Christ in heaven, but was not 
supreme yet over men, and death had not yet fully been 
conquered, although the beginning of his new authority had 
been established by the Spirit in the hearts of Christians. 
They must maintain the strenuous struggles against the 
enemies of the new kingdom, whether superhuman or 
human.* 

The synoptists, therefore, came to all the sayings of Jesus 
with a serene faith as to the final outcome of the conflict 
with the powers of evil. To a considerable extent they are 
interested in adjusting historical events to the general scheme 
of God's conquest over his enemies. These enemies are 
three: First, the devil, and supernatural beings. As Jesus 
himself had pointed out, the conquest over them was already 
in process, as indicated by miracles. Second, the Jews. The 
conquest of the kingdom over them is seen in the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem. Third, death, which, as Paul said,^ was 
to be the last enemy overcome, was not yet subdued, but 
would be at the resurrection. 

These three enemies are not always speciflcally referred 
to in the gospels, but constitute the elements in the point of 
view from which the synoptists approach the interpretation 
of the personality of Jesus. At the distance of a generation 
the perspective of his work shaped itself more plainly and 
his significance became more sharply defined. Whatever 
he had done gained value because it had been done by the 
Christ. 

1 If J. Weiss be correct {Reich Gottes^, p. 97), this point of view appears clearly 
also in Rev. 12 : 7 f . Michael is there represented as having conquered the dragon 
in heaven, but the dragon had been cast on earth, where he was making trouble. 

21 Cor. 15:26. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 227 

The general tendencies of this synoptic interpretation, 
whatever its critical form, are varied. 

1. There is, first, the tendency toward messianic precision. 
Thus, the work of John the Baptist is more distinctly seen 
to have been of messianic significance. Not only is his 
preaching regarded as the beginning of the gospel,^ but his 
birth is described as involving miracles of various sorts, indi- 
cating his future mission,^ and he himself, it is stated, was 
regarded by the people as a possible Christ.^ His preaching 
is summarized by Matthew as a message concerning the 
coming of the kingdom of God,* rather than the more gener- 
ically ethical call to the forgiveness of sins, contained in 
Mark. He is, furthermore, distinctly identified as Elijah.^ 

Similarly in the case of Jesus we learn from the later 
form taken by the gospel narrative that he was recognized 
even as a babe as the future Christ,^ and that he was born 
in Bethlehem in accordance with prophecy.^ In the account 
of the shekel found in the fish's mouth ^ we have additional 
material intended to enforce the independence of the Christ, 
and in that of the dead saints who rose at the time of Jesus' 
resurrection an even later addition, originally probably in 
the form of a gloss, intended to illustrate the power of the 
Christ over the dead.^ There are a number of cases in 
which the evangelists in reworking Mark have made slight 
changes to call attention to the real messianic significance 
of Jesus. ^^ Perhaps most noticeable of these changes are 
the addition of the terms "Son of man," "Son of God," and 
other expressions intended to relate Jesus with God in the 

1 Mark 1 : 1 f . 2 Luke 1 : 5-25, 39-56, 57-80. 3 Luke 3 : 15. 

4 Matt. 3: 2, a rewriting of Markl : 4. 
'i v^ 5 Matt. 17 : 327 The identification is not in the original, Mark 9 : 13. 

6 Luke 2 : 21-39. 7 Matt. 2 : 1-12. 8 Matt. 17 : 24-27. 

9 Matt. 27 : 52, 53. Is this in some obscure way connected with the preaching to 
the spirits in prison of 1 Pet. 3 : 19? 

10 Matt. 4 : 23 ; c/. Mark 1 : 39. Luke 5 : 43 ; c/. Mark 1 : 38. 



.'V 



228 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

account of Peter's confession at Csesara Philippi/ the refer- 
ence of the "sign of Jonah" to the three days in the tomb^ 
the substitution of a question concerning the parousia of 
Jesus for one concerning the fall of Jerusalem,^ and the 
more precise form of the cry of the people at the triumphal 
entry/ to which reference has already been made.^ Distinct 
references to the dependence of Jesus upon the Spirit are 
also occasional.^ The primitive christology is to be seen in 
the explanation appended by Mark to the section on the 
unpardonable sin.' There are to be seen, also, frequently 
slight editorial changes which can hardly be assigned to any 
definite motive, but which would be very natural in the case 
of those writing after Christian history had fairly begun, and 
the messianic importance of Jesus had become a fundamen- 
tal element in Christian hope.^ Luke also adds material^ 
emphasizing the messianic significance of both Jesus and 
the authority of his representatives. 

2. There is further to be seen, especially in Luke, the 
substitution of a somewhat more miraculous for a simpler 
account, as for example, in the narrative of the baptism, ^^ and 
that of the call of the four." While it is easy to lay too 
much stress upon this characteristic of the third evangelist, 
just as it is also easy to overemphasize his ebionitic and 
universalizing tendencies, it is undeniable that the general 
attitude of mind of early Christianity was favorable to 
receiving miraculous narratives as supplementary to the 
original record of the gospels. The Protevangelium and 

1 Mark 8 : 27 f . ; Matt. 16 : 13 f . ; Luke 9 : 18 f . For other instances of the addition 
of the term " Son of man," see Luke 17 : 86 ; Mark 10 : 45 ; Luke 19 : 10. 

2 Matt. 12 : 40. 3 Matt. 24 : 3 ; cf. Mark 13 : 4. 

4 See Matt. 21 : 9 and Luke 19 : 38 ; cf. Mark 11 : 10. 

5 Pp. 98 f. above. 6As Luke 4:14. 7 Mark 3: 30, 

8 For example, the origin of the word "apostle," Luke 6:13; c/., Mark 3:4; the 
additional clauses in the Lord's Prayer, Matt. 6:10; the generalizing of the precise 
formula, "Ye are Christ's," Mark 9:45, to "the name of a disciple," Matt. 10:42; the 
attribution of Judas' s wrongdoing to Satan, Luke 22: 3. 

9 22 : 28-30. lo Luke 3 : 21. n Luke 5 : 1-11. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 229 

the entire mass of apochryphal gospels dealing with the 
infancy and boyhood of Jesus illustrate this tendency 
clearly. 

3. There is further evident the desire in Matthew to 
establish the messiahship of Jesus on the basis of an appeal 
to the Old Testament. The passages to which appeal is 
made are not those commonly used by the rabbis, but are 
clearly suggested by various events in the life of Jesus him- 
self. These events are said to have occurred in order that 
certain prophecies might be "fulfilled,"^ but in not a few cases 
the force of the argument is quite lost for the modem 
interpreter.^ These passages disclose the general apolo- 
getic and interpretative purpose of all the canonical gospels. 
Even Mark, though without formal statement, may be seen 
to be built up about the purpose to exhibit the gradual 
revelation and apprehension of the messianic character of 
Jesus.' 

4. The chief interest of the synoptic writers is eschato- 
logical. That to which they looked forward is the return 
of the absent Christ for the purpose of judgment and salva- 
tion. Writing, as they do, subsequent to the destruction of 
Jerusalem,* their faith in the speedy return of their Lord is 
quickened by that terrible event. From this point of view, 
the difficulties which lie in the thirteenth chapter of Mark, 
which has been used by both Matthew and Luke, to a 
considerable extent vanish. That chapter, as has already 
been pointed out, seems to be a combination of a group of 

iMatt. 1:22, 23; 2:5,6; 2:15; 2:17,18; 2:23; 4:13-16; 8:17; 12:17-21; 13:35; 21:4, 
5; 27:9. In addition there is in Matt. 13:14, 15 the change to the result of the teUc 
form of Mark 4 : 12, and Matt. 9 : 13 is added to Mark 2 : 17. 

2 See Toy, Quotations, and, for the contrary view, Johnson, The Quotations of 
the New Testament from the Old, passim. 

3 See Wendt, Lehre Jesu, Vol. I, and J.Weiss, Dos Marcusevangelium, and 
Das alteste Evangelium, pp. 99-109. 

* Mark 13 : 14, which lies back of Matt. 24 : 15 and Luke 21 : 20 ; Mark 13 : 20. 



230 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem/ and another 
group of prophecies concerning the coming of the Christ. 
Despite the objections of Wendt,^ both may safely be con- 
sidered as coming from Jesus himself. That he expected 
the fall of Jerusalem is beyond question,^ and it has already 
appeared that he regarded his return as in some way sus- 
ceptible to interpretation by apocalyptic figures. The criti- 
cal difficulty has always lain in discovering the motive for 
the origin of the Jerusalem doom and for the combination 
of these two sets of material in Mark, chap. 13. Is it only 
an apostolic mistake ? If so, it is difficult to account for. 
Beyond this passage there is no evidence that the early 
church* saw in the destruction of Jerusalem evidence of the 
messianic parousia. If, however, the two sets of prophecy 
are genuine — and who would quite like to say so keen a 
mind as that of Jesus would have failed to forecast the 
inevitable outcome of the revolutionary Zealot messianism 
we have seen characterizing so influential a section of his 
people ? — an explanation is not altogether beyond our 
reach. Its key lies in a comparison of the pronouns ravTa 
in vs. 30 and eKelvr}^ in vs. 32. The two contrasted pro- 
nouns refer respectively to the fate of Jerusalem and the 
parousia of the Christ, and suggest that the two sets of 
material are in such a relation that the one gives a basis for 

1 Mark 13: 7, 8 (9a), 14-20, 24-27, 30, 31 refer to Jerusalem, and the rest of the pas- 
sage, vss. 4-6, 96-13, 21-23, 28, 29, 32-37, to the messianic consummation, according to 
Wendt. In my judgment vss. 24-27 should be transferred to the second source. 

"^Lehre Jesu, Vol. I, pp. 10 f. 

3 Luke 19:41-44. This passage may have been sharpened up by Luke, but such 
a hypothesis is really gratuitous. Any picture of the doom of a city might easily run 
into the conventional particulars of a siege. See also Matt. 23 : 37-39 (Luke 13 : 34, 35). 
Compare also his doom of the Galilean cities (Luke 10:13-15). 

4 Yet see Russell, The Parousia ; Wabeen, The Parousia. See also Schwabtz- 
KOPFF, The Prophecies of Jesus Christ, etc.; Beet, The Last Things; Weiffenbach, 
Die Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu; Bbiggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, pp, 132-65; 
Haupt, Die eschatologischen Aussagen Jesu, passim. A good summary with litera- 
ture is the article by Beown, "Parousia," Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 231 

confidence in the other.^ The destruction of Jerusalem 
showed the accuracy of Jesus' authentic forecast of its 
approaching punishment. The judgment had begun with 
the house of Israel, the second group of enemies of the 
Christ. Such precise and terrible fulfilment of his prophe- 
cies regarding Jerusalem argued an equally certain fulfil- 
ment of his prophecies of messianic glory. Further, the 
persecution Jesus had said^ would come upon his disciples 
just before the coming of their salvation was already being 
suffered under the Roman state. It might also be trusted 
to presage the coming of the Son of man.^ Thus the 
parallelism led to faith in the speedy establishment of the 
messianic kingdom. The generation within which all "these" 
events — i. e., the political — were to take place had not yet 
quite passed from the earth, and the woes which, as appears 
from Jewish and Christian literature, were expected to pre- 
cede the coming of Christ, had already begun. Sustained 
by these fulfilments of Jesus' words as regards Jerusalem 
and their own persecution, the Christians who "read"* 
might well "understand" and rest in supreme confidence that 
Jesus' prophecies of the coming of the kingdom would also 
be fulfilled. "These things" — the destruction of Jerusalem 
— had, as foretold, come to pass before the generation who 
heard Jesus' words had disappeared. As to the coming of 
"That Day" Christians might be in ignorance, but they 
were always to await it.^ 

iThis view is involved in the double question of the disciples, When will 
Jerusalem be destroyed, and what are the signs of thy coming? in Matt. 24; 3. In 
Mark 13:4 both questions refer to Jerusalem. Matthew has given the second ques- 
tion the definite messianic form. 

2Vss. 9-13. 

3 Vs. 29 {ravTa yivoix^va.) makes the siege of Jerusalem the sign of this greater 
event. C/, also the pronouns in vs. 24. 

*Vs. 14. 

5 This interpretation would make it more natural to regard vss. 24-27 as belong- 
ing to the apocalyptic rather than to the political group of sayings, as in the analysis 
of Wendt. 



232 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

5. There are to be seen also traces of the evangelist's 
general belief in the vicarions and sacrificial death of Jesus. 
The passages referring to the death of Jesns as a ransom^ 
may possibly be a comment from the evangelist similar to 
that concerning the "cleansing of all meats. "^ The words 
of Jesus at the Last Supper are given distinctly mediatorial 
reference by Matthew.^ 

Just how far this insistence upon the vicarious nature of 
the death of Jesus was due to the influence of Paul must always 
be a matter of discussion, but the antecedent probability of 
such influence is considerable. John Mark was one of Paul's 
companions,* and his gospel was written after the Pauline 
doctrine had been widely disseminated.^ At the same time, 
it would be a mistake to hold that every such similarity 
between the evangelists' interpretation of the death of Jesus 
and that of Paul was due to the direct or indirect^ influence 
of the latter. As has already appeared, the germ of this 
interpretation lay in the Christian faith of the earliest 
period.^ 

6. As regards the personality of Jesus, two of the synoptic 
gospels represent a point of view which is less strictly mes- 
sianic than that of Paul. Both Matthew and Luke^ prefix 
to the Markan gospel, accounts not quite consistent, of the 
birth of Jesus. The christology of the original gospels, as 

1 Mark 10: 45. 

2 Mark 7 : 19. But see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, Vol. II, pp. 227 f. 

3 Matt. 26:28. 

4Actsl3: 5, 13; 15:37, 39; Col.4:10; Philem.24; 2Tim.4:ll. Holtzmann, iV'eti- 
testamentliche Theologie, Vol, I, p. 424, note 2, criticises Holsten's extreme position on 
the point. See J. Weiss, Das diteste Evangeliuvi, pp. 94 f., for discussion of entire 
matter. 

5 That Paul used the Markan gospel seems apparent f rom 1 Cor. 7 : 10, which 
finds a parallel only in Mark 10 : 12. 

6 For example, through 1 Peter. 

7 It would be a mistake to regard all additional matter in Matthew and Luke as 
mere reflections of the evangelist's own faith. Much of it is clearly that of Jesus 
himself. Compare, e. gr., the words of Jesus to Peter in Mark 8:32 f.; Luke 12:49f. 

8 Matt. 1 : 18-25 ; Luke 1 : 26-56 ; 2 : 1-20. 



Messianism of Post-Paultne Christianity 233 

has already appeared, is exceedingly simple. Jesus was the 
Anointed One ; the Spirit of God came upon him at his bap- 
tism. In the new form taken by the synoptic material in 
Matthew and Luke this experience of the baptism is retained, 
but another explanation of the personality of Jesus is found in 
the miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit in causing his birth 
without a human father. The figure of unction is thus re- 
placed by that of paternity. The messianic quality is 
further said to have been recognized in Jesus while he was 
yet an infant.^ In the Matthean account of the baptism 
there is introduced^ a conversation between John and Jesus 
which brings the two concepts together. John recognizes 
Jesus as one not in need of baptism, and Jesus receives the 
rite as a means of fulfilling all righteousness.^ Further 
than this there is no attempt in either Matthew or Luke to 
adjust the two explanations of the divine character of Jesus, 
if indeed it is fair to say that even this addition of Matthew 
is such an attempt. In other material prefixed by Luke to 
Mark,^ Joseph and Mary are said not to understand the 
reference which the boy Jesus made to God as his Father. 

Yet it would be hardly safe to argue that for these reasons 
we are to declare off-hand that these early chapters are late 
and legendary. No reference is, indeed, made to their con- 
tent throughout the New Testament, but at the same time 
these sections contain messianic psalms which cannot be 
referred to Christian influences. The songs of both Zacharias^ 
and Mary^ are thoroughly Jewish and represent a messianic 
concept which it is quite impossible to derive either from 
the facts of the career of Jesus or from the early Christian 
hopes, but which is precisely what might have been expected 
of their authors at the time they are declared to have been 

1 Luke 2: 21-29; Matt. 2:1-23. 2 Matt. 3:14, 15. 

3 The Gospel of the Hebrews represents Jesus as hesitating to seek John's 
baptism because of his ignorance of any sinfulness in his life. 

4 Luke 2 : 41-50. 5 Luke 1 : 67-79. 6 Luke 1 : 46-55. 



234 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

uttered. The critic, therefore, finds himself in difficulty in 
seeking to arrive at any final opinion as regards these infancy 
sections. From the point of view of strict messiahship, they 
are not needed to account for the personality of Jesus and 
are not used by the writers of the New Testament, or indeed 
by the early Christian writers before Ignatius.^ At the same 
time, it is difficult to discover any motive for inventing their 
strong pre-Christian coloring. Possibly their origin may lie 
in the evangelist's desire to explain the term " Son of God" 
which in Paul is used as equivalent to Messiah, but which 
in the Grseco-Roman world might more naturally be inter- 
preted from the point of view of current beliefs in divine 
paternity. Possibly, also, these section may be the outcome 
of an attempt to emphasize the actual rather than the merely 
apparent humanity of Jesus. In any case whether they are 
to be treated as resting upon safe critical foundations or not, 
they represent a phase in the development of the messianic 
interpretation of Jesus which does not appear in primitive 
Christianity or in Paul. 

7. A somewhat similar difficulty meets the student as he 
compares the Pauline doctrine of the resurrection with the 
material in Matthew and Luke dealing with the appearances 
of Jesus. Mark, it will be recalled, contains no story of the 
appearances of Jesus. His gospel closes with the terror of 
the women to whom angels have brought the news that Jesus 
was risen. ^ This abrupt ending can be accounted for only 
by the destruction of the original ending of the gospel. In 
Matthew and Luke, however, we have two independent cycles 
of narratives dealing with the resurrection, one locating the 
event in Galilee,^ and the other,* in the vicinity of Jerusalem. 

1 See HoBEN, The Virgin Birth, May there have been some reference to them 
on the part of the heretic Cerinthus ? 

2 Mark 16:1-8. All that follows Mark 16:8 is now admittedly an addition by 
some later Christian. 

3 Matt. 28 : 1-20. ^ Luke 24 : 1-53. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 235 

In both cycles are materials which it is difficult to harraonize 
with the Pauline dictum ^ that flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the kingdom of God. The Christ who visited the disciples 
in the upper room^ had flesh and bones and could eat solid 
food. The Matthean cycle records that the disciples took 
hold of Jesus' s feet.^ Yet at the same time there is other 
material in Luke which is in accord with the Pauline con- 
cept. The Christ suddenly appeared* and vanished^ before 
his disciples. In view of these inconsistencies, one is forced 
to recognize the possibility that the second or third genera- 
tion of Christians sharpened up certain elements in the 
accounts of the appearances of the risen Christ as they 
increasingly emphasized the reality of the resurrection. As 
apart from these particular narratives the historical resur- 
rection of Jesus is sufficiently attested, it would be unwise 
to dogmatize concerning their details. But the reference to 
the flesh and bones of the risen Christ introduces problems, 
both critical and philosophical, which are very perplexing; 
and yet which are more or less involved in the datum of the 
empty tomb. For our present purpose flnal decision is not 
demanded. Whatever position one takes as regards the 
authenticity of the details of these accounts, it is indisput- 
able that they indicate the belief of the early church in the 
continued incarnation, if one may use the expression, of the 
Christ. The risen Jesus is not diffused through the uni- 
verse, as is the Spirit, but, as Paul and Peter insist, is in 
heaven, whither he had gone by the ascension.® And the 
Christ who went to heaven disappearing in the clouds was 
not a mere spirit; he was a real personality possessed of 
spirit and some sort of body. 

It cannot have escaped notice, however, that in these 
expositions and reworkings of the evangelists, no attempt 

1 1 Cor. 15 : 50. 2 Luke 24 : 36-43. 3 Matt. 28 : 9. 

i Luke 24 : 36. 5 Luke 24 : .31. 6 Luke 24 : 51 ; Acts 1 : 1-11. 



236 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

— except in the case of the infancy sections — is made at 
adjusting the strictly messianic interpretation of Jesus to 
other than the strictly messianic apperception. Such re- 
adjustment was inevitable and appeared in several of the 
most important of the later books of the canon. 

II 

All questions as to the authorship of the epistle to the 
Hebrews are confessedly open, yet it bears unmistakable trace 
of the influence of Paul. Without the ordinary salutation to 
be found in letters/ it is also anonymous. Who could have 
written it has been a favorite subject of speculation from the 
days of Tertullian, who ascribed it to Barnabas.^ This view 
has obtained general acceptance in modern times. Clement 
of Alexandria and Origen conjectured that its ideas were 
from Paul and the composition from a disciple, possibly 
Clement of Rome or Luke^ — a position that was given weight 
by the Textus Receptus and passed over to orthodoxy. Other 
conjectures have been Clement of Rome, Luke (as inde- 
pendent author), Apollos, Prisca.* But no choice can be 
more than tentative. The noble writing continues to raise 
the perplexing question: How could so great a man as its 
author must have been become unknown to the early Fathers ? 
and to suggest caution in denying culture to the Christians 
of a period about which we evidently know so little.^ 

The general purpose of Hebrews is apologetic.® The new 
Christian hope is restated from the point of view of ritualis- 

1 That it is none the less an epistle seems clear from 6 : 10 ; 10: 32-34; 13: 7, 9, 18, 19, 
23, 25. 

2 De Pudicitia, 20. 

3 EuSEBius, Hist. Eccle., iii, 28 ; vi, 25. 

*Haenack, Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentlische Wissenschaft, Vol. I (1900), 
pp. 16 f. 

5 In general see Julicher, Einleitung ; and art. "Hebrews," Encyclopaedia 
Biblica. 

6 Beuce, art. "Hebrews" in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 237 

tic Judaism, yet it distinctly presupposes that those to whom 
it is addressed are Christians who should be well grounded 
in the first principles of their religion: repentance, faith, 
baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgment/ 
Back of these " first principles" are to be seen further the con- 
trolling concepts which we have already traced as they have 
passed from Judaism into early Christianity. 

1. To the writer of Hebrews, as well as to other mes- 
sianists, time fell into two great divisions. Although he 
does not use the expression "this age,"^ his eye is constantly 
setting up "the age to come."^ Living himself "at the end," * 
during the consummation of the ages,^ he looked forward to 
that glorious sabbath rest which was drawing near,^ of which 
Jesus was the High-Priest. 

2. The power of Satan in the present age is to be inferred 
from the fact that he has the power of death. ^ 

3. The kingdom of God was still future,^ although in a 
sense already possessed by those who awaited its coming.^ 
There is in the book absolutely no suggestion of any coming of 
the kingdom through social evolution. It cannot come until 
the cataclysm prophecied by Haggai is past.^" 

4. The judgment is always before the mind of the writer 
and is that for which all men are to prepare. Indeed, with 
repentance it is one of the first principles of the Christian 
faith.^^ 

5. The Jews are those to whom the letter is especially 
addressed, and they are evidently conceived of as the true 
members of the kingdom. Israel is the olfco<; @€ov to which 

1 Heb. 6:1,2. 2 i k6s/iaos, however, occurs in Heb. 11 : 7, 38 ; 10 : 5. 

3 Heb. 6:5; c/. 9 : 11, 15. * en eaxaTou rSiv rifjLepSiv, Heb. 1 : 2. 

6 Heb. 9 : 26. This expression is interesting in its bearing upon the belief in the 
speedy coming of the Christ. 

6 Heb. 4:9; 10 : 25, 36-38 ; c/. /caipbs Siop0c5a-€a)s, 9 : 10. 

V Heb. 2 : 14. 8 Heb. 13 : 14. 9 Heb. 12 : 28. 

10 Heb. 12 : 26, 27 ; c/. Hag. 2:7. n Heb. 6 : 2 r see also Heb. 9 : 27 ; 10 : 26, 31. 



238 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the author and his fellow Christians belonged.^ Christ 
assists not angels, but Jews,^ and the New Jerusalem is the 
New Zion.^ At the same time, there is in the letter no 
retrogression toward primitive Christianity, only belief that 
Israel can partake of the heavenly calling,* and the letter 
appeals quite as strongly to gentiles as to Jews. The extra- 
canonical literature of early Christianity shows plainly that 
even in the gentile churches the method of exposition fol- 
lowed by the book would be thoroughly satisfactory. Early 
Christian writings, like 1 Clement and Barnabas^ which 
closely resemble Hebrews in many ways, appeal more con- 
stantly to the Old Testament and the fulfilment of prophecy 
than they do to peculiarly Christian literature.^ 

6. The resurrection of the Christ is constantly referred 
to, and in a certain way is made a type of that of the believ- 
ers.® But no detailed reference is made to a general resur- 
rection, and belief in it does not belong to the "wisdom of 
the perfect," but rather to the first principles^ presupposed 
on the part of those to whom the letter is addressed. 

7. The Messiah is the central point of interest in the 
epistle. He is in heaven on the right hand of God,^ but was 
pre -existent,^ and above the angels in that he was Son rather 
than a servant.^" He is to appear again unto the salvation 
of those who wait for him.^^ Hebrews, however, shows clearly 
the beginnings of the third stratum of early Christian 
thought. Paulinism had systematically treated the impli- 

iHeb. 3:2-6. 2Heb. 2:16. 

3Heb. 12:22. 4Heb. 3:1; 4:U; 13:10-12. 

5 To this may be added the entire contrast drawn between the old Hebrew king- 
dom and that of the new dispensation. 

6 Heb. 6: 20; cf. also 10: 32-38, where the Christians are urged to endure persecu- 
tion because of the coming reward. 

7 Heb. 6:2. SHeb. 8:1, 2; 12:2. 

9 Heb. 1:2; c/. 1 : 9. There is no reference here to a miraculous birth. 
10 Heb. 1:1-14; 3:6; 5:8; 7:28. 

11 Heb. 9 : 28. It is interesting to notice that in Heb. 13 : 20 Jesus is described in 
conventional messianic terms as the shepherd of the sheep. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 239 

cations of Christian faith in its relation to Hebrew religious 
philosophy. Hebrews begins the process of finding and 
defending interpretations of Christian theology in other than 
messianic terms. Messianism is indeed in the background, 
but the main purpose of the writing is twofold, viz. : to show 
how the Christ fulfils the types of sacrifice and High-Priest 
as they exist in the Old Testament, and to encourage the 
early Christians to larger faith and hope in the midst of 
persecution. 

In treating of the Christ as an anti-type of the temple 
worship, the author distinctly asserts that Jesus was not a 
High -Priest in the Old Testament sense. If he were on 
earth, he would not be a priest, since he was not of Aaronic 
descent,^ but rather after the fashion of Melchizedek.^ At 
the same time, he insists that the priesthood of the old dis- 
pensation was the forecasting of the actual deeds of Jesus 
who by dying went behind the veil, after having offered 
himself as a sacrifice.^ It is natural, therefore, to find the 
vicarious character of the death of Jesus strongly emphasized 
in Hebrews.* By it there was established a new covenant 
easily understood, written in men's hearts rather than upon 
statute-books, and thus superior to that of Moses, which was 
provisional.^ Jesus was the priestly mediator of this cov- 
enant, his historical appearance marking the pre-messianic 
age at the end of which the writer conceived of himself liv- 
ing.® Just what that covenant is in particular the writer of 
Hebrews does not say, but^ it is evidently the promises which 
they have received, which include the entrance into the sab- 
bath rest^ and the resurrection of the body. Indeed, it is 

iHeb. 8:4; c/. 7:25. 2Heb. 7:5f. 

3 Heb. 8 : 1-13 ; chap. 9, especially vss. 23 f . ; 10 : 1. 

*Heb. 2:9; 5:7-9; 9:11, 15; 10:11-18. 5Heb. 7:18, 22; 9:19-22; 12:24. 

6 Heb. 12:24. 

7 Cf. Heb. 13:20, where the risen Christ establishes a Sta^TjKijv aliaviov. 
8Heb. 3:7— 4:10. 



240 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

possible to argue that, like Paul, the author of Hebrews saw 
in the death of Christ the promise of the conquest of the 
spirit over the flesh, not only in his case, but in that of all 
those who believed.^ 

Obviously this interpretation of Jesus as the great High- 
Priest is not derived from, but is superimposed upon his 
messianic significance. Another tendency in the Christology 
of the epistle is even more remote from messianism. It is 
the epistle's metaphysical valuation of the personality of 
the Christ. This concept, as has just appeared, is in the 
term *'Son." The method followed by the writer is worth 
consideration. Instead of proceeding from an assumption 
as to the nature of the pre-existent Christ to the historical 
person Jesus, he argues backward from the (historical) ele- 
vation of Jesus to the messianic dignity to the original nature 
which he must have possessed in order to have made such 
exaltation possible. That is, the metaphysical Sonship is an 
inference from the messianic power now exhibited by the 
historical but risen Jesus. How great he must have been to 
have achieved such supremacy! The thought is not devel- 
oped far, but is obviously on the way to Nicea.^ 

An important characteristic of the epistle is, therefore, 
its general tendency to present Christianity systematically 
from the point of view of a reinterpretation of the messianic 
estimate of Jesus. The original material, so to speak, from 
which Christian thought is drawn is that common to primi- 
tive and Pauline teaching, but the mind of the writer, 
obviously under the influence of the Alexandrian school of 

iHeb. 5:7-9, 14. 

^ airavyaafxa TTj'; 56|t}?; x'^P'^-'^'^'VP Tijs vTTocTTacrecos auTov (1:3) remind one of Alexan- 
drine modes of thought as well as Wis., 7:25, 26; Bruce, "Hebrews," in Hastings, 
Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 335; cf. Rhiem, Lehrhegriff des Hebraerbriefs, pp. 
409-14. This methaphysical tendency is more clearly shown at the beginning of the 
epistle than in its later chapters ; cf. especially chap. 1. Weiss, Biblical Theology, 
Vol. II, p. 189, note, very properly says: "On these expressions .... Beyschlag's 
attempt is irredeemably wrecked, to understand the pre-existence of Christ as that 
of an impersonal principle." 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 2J:1 

thought, is not content to leave matters where Paul left 
them. He is dealing with a different theological appercep- 
tion. Jesus and Peter and Paul brought the gospel into 
relations with essentially and all but exclusively Judaistic 
thought. The author of Hebrews has another audience, and 
consequently another problem. The Hellenistic Judaism 
and Christianity of the time demanded that Christian "first 
principles" should be restated and recombined, and sub- 
jected to new inductions. Hebrews does not mark the 
reworking of these "first principles" from the genuinely 
Hellenic philosophy, but it does mark the same method. 
Messianism now appears in the process of passing into 
theological equivalents. It is a point of departure, not, as 
in earlier Paulinism, a final interpretation. The incarnation 
of the Christ is given a new value, although one already 
presaged in Pauline teaching. It is something more than 
an incident in his humiliation and re-exaltation. It is a part 
of a general philosophy. The Christ became incarnate as a 
part of his messianic preparation. He became incarnate 
and suffered that he might become thoroughly in sympathy 
with humanity.^ His offering of himself as the Sacrifice 
was through the Holy Spirit,^ which is also in the believer. 
By virtue of his incarnation he was liable to, and was sub- 
jected to, temptation, but by virtue of his Sonship he did 
not, like the priest of the Mosaic covenant, commit sin.^ 
Thus perfected through the experience of humanity, and 
through humble trust in God,* the Christ became not only the 
High-Priest raised from death to the heavenly kingdom, but 
the great Inspirer and Captain of all those who believe in 
him and receive his Spirit.^ 

It is on this basis of a conviction grounded in this high- 
priestly interpretation of the Christ that the writer incites 

iHeb. 2:9-18; 4:15; 5:7-9. 2Heb.9:14. 3Heb. 4:15; 9:U. 

4Heb.2:13. 5 Heb. 2:10; 12:2, 3. 



242 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

his readers to endure persecution, holding fast to the faith 
which is theirs, and of which Jesus is the great Captain.^ 
In the interest of stimulating this consistency, he introduces 
the noble list of martyrs who, although they had not received 
the promise, yet preferred holding to such faith as they had, 
to saving their lives or the lives of their friends. The 
reward is so certain for the Christian as to make persecution 
endurable.^ The very Christ had to suffer in order that, 
like humanity, he should be made perfect through suffering.' 
As a corollary of this generalizing and equivalenting 
process is the epistle's teaching as to faith. It is no longer 
so much the acceptance of Jesus as Christ as "faith toward 
God."* Those who, like the Old Testament saints, "had 
not received the promise" — i. e., participation in the his- 
torical revelation of the messianic salvation — believed God 
quite as truly as those to whom the letter is addressed.^ 
While Paul had anticipated this conception in his references 
to the faith of Abraham, he had not elaborated its religious 
and generic elements, but had rather confined it to the 
messianic definition. Hebrews in some degree turns back 
to the more general thought of Jesus himself, and treats 
faith as an attitude of trust in God and a self-sacrificing 
devotion to moral ideals. In this, as in the reinterpretation 
of the messianic idea itself, there appears a step toward the 
dejudaizing of the definitions and concepts intended by 
Christianity. The eternal value of Jesus was thus set forth 
in terms and by methods already dominating the minds of 
those to whom the exposition was made. Christian theology, 
like Paul, is thus seen becoming Grecian to Grecians as it 
had been Jewish to Jews. 

It is perhaps inevitable that, because of the strong 
emphasis laid by the epistle upon Jesus as an example and 

1 Heb. 13 : 1. 2 Heb. 10 : 32-38. 3 Heb. 5 : 7-9. 

4Heb. 6:2. 5 Heb. 11 : 39, 40 ; c/. 6 : 2. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 243 

upon the generic character of faith, the Spirit should be less 
prominent. To a considerable extent Hebrews, like James, 
represents Christian "wisdom." Conduct is made more 
dependent upon one's own volition than upon the following 
of the better spiritual impulses due to the conscious presence 
of God. None the less back of the "wisdom" of Hebrews 
as back of the forensic theology of Paul there is the expe- 
rience of the Spirit. Through the Spirit Jesus had been 
raised from the dead;^ from the Spirit the believer had 
received " gifts, "^ and the worst of all sins was doing despite 
to the Spirit of Grace.' But farther than these hints at the 
great presupposition of Christian life the author does not 
go. His aim is too philosophical, too ethical, and too 
apologetic. He would convince his already Christian readers 
as to the significance of their Christ; he is content to trust 
their new conviction to express itself in moral endeavor. 

Ill 

The Johannine literature includes the Gospel according 
to John and the three epistles ascribed to the apostle. Of 
these four writings the second and third epistles are very 
brief, and for our present purpose are of comparatively 
small doctrinal importance.* The first epistle and the gospel 
exhibit, however, a phase of Christianity which has always 
appealed powerfully to the religious consciousness of the 
church. The critical questions concerning this literature 
are well known, and have been for two generations the 
source of an almost boundless literature.^ While it would 
be unsafe to say that any unanimous decision has yet been 

1 Heb. 9 : 14 ; cf. Rom. 8 : 11. 2 Heb. 2:4. 3 Heb. 10 : 29. 

*2 John, vs. 7, defines antichrist as one who denies that Jesus Christ "comes in 
the flesh." 

5 See Introductions by Holtzmann and JtJiiiCHEE. A good brief statement will 
be found in Bacon, Introduction, and from a more conservative point of view in 
DoDs, Expositor's Greek Testament, Vol. I. The article by Reynolds in Hastings, 
Dictionary of the Bible, is also valuable. 



244: The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

reached regarding its authorship, the liraits of the problem 
are very much more distinctly seen today than ever before, 
and there is a tendency toward a compromise view which 
harmonizes the data upon which opposing schools have 
based their conflicting conclusions. Without entering into 
any detailed criticism, it may be said that it is impossible to 
believe that the author of the Epistles of John was any 
other than the author of the last chapter of the Fourth 
Gospel ; but just as certain does it seem that the author of 
the Fourth Gospel in its present form, could not have been 
the apostle.^ He was rather a sympathetic expositor of 
material which came from the apostle.^ 

Whether or not one agrees with this particular critical 
position, there is no gainsaying the fact that the Fourth 
Gospel represents a different type of exposition from that of 
the synoptists. And this peculiar type is due to the evan- 
gelist rather than to a change in the teaching of Jesus. He 
has so reworked and discussed the teaching of Jesus as to 
make it something very different from the pregnant picto- 
rial words of the synoptist. Yet, notwithstanding its change 
of form, one would hesitate to say that it is any less true to 
the teaching of the Master, either in the words of Jesus it 
records or in its much larger element of comment and expo- 
sition. It has proceeded farther even than Matthew along 
the road of apologetics and theology, but its representation 
of the gospel, so far from being untrue, is rather an attempt 
at adjusting the teaching and life of Jesus to a different 
order of thought from that of the Jew. Eschatology and 
the eschatological salvation are fundamental to it.^ In fact, 

1 John 21 : 22-24 clearly implies that the death of John preceded the writing of 
this chapter. 

2 See pp. 59-61 above, and Bubton, A Shoi-t Introduction to the Gospels. 

3 John 5:19-21, 22-29; 6:40-58 deal with the contrast between life and death, 
notably that of the resurrection. The judgment is treated in 3 : 17 ; 5 : 22, 23, 27 ; 9 : 39 ; 
16 : 47. Salvation is spoken of as opposed to perishing in 3 : 17 ; to being judged, 3 :18 ; 
12 : 43, 50 ; and the wrath of God, 3 : 36. Flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of 
God, 5:6; and a man must be born again — i. e., by the resurrection? — to enter the 
kingdom of God, 3:3. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Chkistianity 245 

as far as we are able to distinguish the editorial raaterial 
from that which is unquestionably from Jesus, we see how 
true the author is to the purpose he himself states. The 
book was written that men might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God, and believing, have life in him.^ 

The life to which the evangelist refers is, of course, the 
eternal life, which we have seen already to be the center of 
the Pauline thought and the supreme good in the teaching 
of Jesus. This eternal life is certainly something more than 
a merely ethical matter, however much it may involve moral 
qualities. Wherever it is mentioned it is introduced with 
an eschatological connotation, often as a contrast with pun- 
ishment which is inclusive of death.^ It unquestionably 
therefore refers to that new and completer life that awaits 
beyond death the personality in which the Spirit is working. 
It is in this sense of an actual experience of God through a 
moral life in accord with a supreme definition of Jesus that 
the evangelist speaks of eternal life as a knowledge of God 
and of Jesus Christ.^ Faith in the Fourth Gospel, as with 
Paul, is, in the first instance, the acceptance of Jesus as 
Christ, and results in eternal life.* In fact, the general plan 
of the gospel centers about such a confession. Its various 
sections, which were very probably originally independent 
treatises, have as a general plan an incident in the life of 
Jesus which leads up to a discussion which results in the 
hearers of Jesus taking a decided position relative to him, 
either accepting him or rejecting him as the Christ. If we 
had only the Fourth Gospel, it would seem as if the chief 
thing which Jesus endeavored to accomplish was to have 
men accept him as the Christ.^ 

1 John 20:31. 

2 John 3:16, the opposite of perishing; 5:24 (the words of Jesus), 5:26, 29, where 
the reference is that by the evangelist to the resurrection ; cf. 11 : 25 ; 12 : 50. 

3 John 17:3. For a non-biblical, pantheistic conception that approaches this of 
the evangelist, but minus the expectation of personal immortality, see Picton, Reli- 
gion of the Universe^ pp. 303, 304. 

4 John 1:50; 4:39; 6:29; 9:22; c/. 12:42. 5 c/. John 7 : 25-29 ; 10:22-39. 



246 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

This point of view is certainly not that of the synoptic 
gospels, but it is precisely that of a devoted disciple, who, 
looking back upon the career of his Master through the 
course of years, would be quick to see how constantly Jesus 
was in reality presenting himself as a subject of definition. 
There is nothing impossible in the statements that the 
people^ and the Pharisees were in perplexity concerning 
him, and there is everything in favor of the correctness of 
the interpretation given by the evangelist to Jesus' attitude 
toward this perplexity. 

The Fourth Evangelist, however, is not content to have 
human destiny determined by what might be interpreted, 
however incorrectly, as an. act of mere intellectual assent. 
The acceptance of Jesus as Christ is fundamentally a moral 
act and expressive of a moral state. It was a moral criterion. 
If a man came to the Light, it was because he was doing 
truth ; if he turned from the Light, it was because his deeds 
were evil.^ Even the miracles of Jesus would have no 
meaning to those who could not see in them "signs" of the 
divine love.^ 

But this reverting to fundamentals, this effort to adjust 
the new faith of the Christian to the philosophical rather 
than the Jewish attitude of mind, is carried farther by the 
evangelist. It extends to an accommodation or redefinition 
of messiahship itself. 

How far removed the readers of the gospel must have 
been from unalloyed Jewish or primitive Christian messian- 
ism is to be seen in that the author translates the word 
Messiah for their benefit.* But such interpretation is of 
slight importance compared with that larger purpose to 
revalue the messiahship of Jesus in terms which would 

1 John 7 : 25-27, 40-44. 2 John 3 : 18-21 : cf. 1 John 1 : 6. 

3 See in particular chap. 6 entire. 

4 John 1:42; 4:25. Cf. his similar explanation of other Jewish terms, like 
"rabbi," and customs, like those of the feast and defilement. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 247 

make it intelligible to the religious consciousness of the 
non-Jewish philosophical world- 
All critics are agreed that the work was written at the 
very end of the first or at the beginning of the second cen- 
tury, and was intended for those who were not controlled by 
those concepts which prevailed in the primitive Christian 
communities. The Prologue to the gospeP seeks to dis- 
cover a point of contact between the new faith and the cur- 
rent Logos philosophy. It is here that the gospel comes 
close to the modern mind. The Logos of the later Grreek 
philosophy was strikingly like that half-personified Law 
that plays so large a r5le in today's religious and philo- 
sophical thought. For the Logos was God conceived of as 
intelligible revelation, sometimes cosmic, sometimes more 
individually. It would not be correct to say that the Johan- 
nine Logos was derived from that of Philo. As has been 
repeatedly shown,^ there are decided differences between the 
two. At the same time, it would be just as incorrect to say 
the Johannine Logos philosophy was an independent devel- 
opment without genetic relations with the general concept 
that had become socialized by Stoicism throughout the world 
quite as truly as by Philo in Alexandria. The Fourth Gos- 
pel is the outcome of a desire to present the significance 
of Jesus as the Christ to those people who were dominated, 
not by the messianic, but by this Logos concept. It was 
the Logos rather than, as in Paulinism, the Christ that was 
incarnated.^ Just as in Hebrews there is an importation of 
a metaphysical divine sonship into the messianic designation 
of Jesus, so in the Fourth Gospel the messiahship of Jesus as 
presented to the gentile world includes elements not deriva- 
ble from Pharisaism. At the same time, he is still called 

1 John 1:1-18. 

2 For a brief summary see Haenack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, pp. 109-28. 

3 John 1:14. 



248 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the Christ, and there is no attempt to substitute the term 
"Logos" for the term "Christ." A new significance and a 
new content are simply given the later term. 

Similarly, in the first epistle of John there is a develop- 
ment of the broader and more philosophical implications 
and relations of the original Jewish faith. The reality of 
Jesus is assumed and vigorously affirmed to be a source of 
the believer's hope and his new sense of fellowship with the 
Father,^ but the ultimate significance of this historical per- 
son, although it still includes the chief elements of the 
messianic concept, is enlarged to something that moves on 
beyond even the cosmic significance as ascribed to Jesus in 
the Pauline letters of the imprisonment. Whoever denies 
that Jesus is the Christ is a liar,^ and whoever denies the 
Father and the Son is an Antichrist, and the reason for this 
severe judgment lies in the entire philosophy of the epistle 
and of the Fourth Gospel.^ The Christian partakes of the 
divine nature,* and this divine life is genuinely ethical, 
expressing itself not merely in protestation of the love of 
God, but also in the actual love of man.^ As a life it is 
derived from the indwelling of the Spirit,^ sent by God to 
those who believe Jesus to be the Son of God.^ As in Paul, 
this eternal life, which is the result of the union of the 
human and Holy Spirit, reaches its consummation in a new 
mode of life at the time of the reappearance of the Christ, 
when all those who have the spirit and are the children of 
God are to be like their Christ.^ This future life, already 
possessed in part, furnishes a basis for Johannine ethics as 
truly as for the Pauline.^ 

UJohn 1:1-4. 2 1 John 1:22. 3 John 3 : 18-21. 

4 1 John 3 : 9, 10. 5 1 John 3 : 15-24. 6 1 John 3 :24 ; 4 : 12-16. 

■? This concept furnishes a new confirmation for the interpretation given above 
of the significance of the Pauline expression "in Christ," as equivalent to having 
the Spirit which Christ had sent. 

81 John 3:1, 2. 91 John 3:3; 5:5; 4:15-21. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Cheistianity 249 

The advance that the epistle makes toward a later for- 
mulated theology is further to be seen in the incidental ref- 
erence to the threefold witness of the spirit, the water and 
the blood. ^ 

IV 

No one can pass without a sense of retrogression from 
the magnificent Johannine literature, with its profound 
appreciation of human motives and of religious dynamics, 
to the last two books of the canonical collection, the Second 
Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude.^ In them we 
have an echo of that fierce chiliasm which dominated a 
certain section of the church of the second century, and 
which found more satisfaction in the Jewish elements 
of Christianity than in its fundamental character as a 
religion of the spirit made possible through the revelation 
of God in Jesus and the incoming of God himself into 
human life. In this literature we see something of the 
same temperament, world-view, and even personages^ which 
are to be found in the Slavonic Enochs the Shepherd of 
Hermas, and those other and even cruder apocalypses of 
early Christianity and rabbinism. Far more than in any 
other portion of New Testament literature do these writings 
exhibit the desire for the punishment of the enemies which 
marks the Jewish apocalyptic literature as a whole.* In 
them, further, do we see that marked tendency of history to 
emphasize as literal truths the apocalyptic eschatology of 
Christian hope.^ Far more than in the case of the Johan- 
nine or Pauline literature, or the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
does the Christian hope become unworldly, and gloomy, 

ilJohn5:8. 

2 See especially Holtzmann, Einleitung; Haenack, Chronologie etc. A good 
STimmary of the discussion relative to the interdependence of Jude and of Peter 
will found in Bacon, Introduction, pp. 166-74. 

3 Jude, vss. 9, 14. * Jude, vss. 11-16 ; 2 Pet. 2 : 1-22. 
5See, e. ^., 2Pet.3:10-13. 



250 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

while the disappointment and doubt resulting from the 
failure of the Christ to appear during the lifetime of his 
generation are met by recourse to a forced exegesis which 
made a day with the Lord as a thousand years. ^ Yet the 
fundamental elements of Christian life born of the experi- 
ences of the Holy Spirit, are not quite overlooked/ and 
the hope of eternal life is as always an incentive to holy 
living. 



Thus in the later phases of the New Testament teaching 
we find, as in Paul, the emphasis upon the messiahship of 
Jesus and the implied elements of the future messianic age 
side by side with the equally clear recognition of eternal 
life, the result of the believer's actual possession, though 
normal spiritual processes, of the life of God. We see 
further, the beginning of that steady process of accommo- 
dation of messianic values to the needs and preconceptions 
of a non-messianic philosophy. How far this revaluation 
was to proceed, any student of Christian thought can testify. 
Nicsea and Chalcedon are far enough removed from the 
elemental Christology of the Jerusalem community but they 
were implicit in more than one of the later New Testament 
books. But Christian theology, however complete its sub- 
jection to a contemporary metaphysic, has never quite failed 
to see that the end of faith is something other than faith 
itself, and that the most rigorously logical creed is only a 
means of bringing men to Grod and God to men. Jesus, 
however interpreted, has been a Mediator and a Savior. 
But early Fathers, like Tertullian and Justin Martyr, even 
the unknown author of the exquisite Epistle to Diognetus, 
make less edifying teachers for today than the New Testa- 
tament writers. And for this reason: they were too much 

1 2 Pet. 3 : 3-9. 2 Jude, vss. 20, 21 ; 2 Pet. 2 : 4-11. 



Messianism of Post-Pauline Christianity 251 

given to edifying their own unmodern contemporaries. Far 
enough they seem from our way of thinking. The later 
New Testament writers, to some extent, share in this remote- 
ness, but in inverse ratio to their emphasis of the facts 
of the gospel and to the new life of the spirit. With them, 
even with Paul, began that struggle of this inner life to 
which God came, with those current ways and norms of 
thinking through which God came. Christian faith is funda- 
mentally a means of life with God; theological philosophy, 
in so far as it did not further that life, checked it. 

To this struggle between an inherited messianism and 
eternal life, as it is recorded in the pages of the New Testa- 
ment, we must now give consideration. 



PAKT IV 

CHRISTIAN MESSIANISM AND THE CHRISTIAN 
RELIGION 



CHAPTER I 
THE MESSIANIC FRATERNITY 

Chkistianity has never been merely a philosophy ; it has 
always been, as its earliest adherents held, a Way — that is 
to say, a Life. And life means history. Any study of the 
New Testament would be incomplete that did not trace the 
faith and the experience of the early churches in their rela- 
tion to the larger life of that society in which they lived. 
To treat New Testament Christianity as anything other than 
a life dominated by a belief and by a hope would be a 
serious error. Especially is this true in any attempt to dis- 
tinguish between the formal or inherited and the essential 
elements of early Christianity. It has been repeatedly urged 
in the preceding pages that the apostles, while thoroughly 
believing in the messianic character of Jesus, regarded the 
actual regenerating experience of God induced by accepting 
Jesus at the messianic valuation as the fundamental element 
in their gospel. We are now to see that the same results 
come from the study of the life of the Christians in their 
social relations. After all, the test of Christianity was, in 
apostolic days as it always has been, its capacity to produce 
lives filled with love and goodness. It will appear from the 
study of the social expression of Christianity that strictly 
messianic elements were so far from being essential as to 
have been hardly more than economic. They furnished the 
point of contact for converting the world, but they also to 
some extent checked the expression of that regenerate life 
which came from the believer's experience of God. To a 
considerable extent, consequently, they passed into desue- 
tude. The Christian church, beginning as a sect of the 
Jews, during the New Testament times developed into a 

255 



256 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

cosmopolitan movement, but it did not break with the 
messianic movement from which it developed. Brought into 
touch with a world which was only partially under the 
Jewish influence, it yet held to the Jewish messianic expec- 
tation in so far as it lived again in the Christian teaching, 
but accommodated itself as best it could to the various social 
environments in which it found itself. 



Judaism was the social apperception — if one may use 
such a figure — to which the Grospel appealed. Without the 
Jew it is hard to see how there could have been a Christian ; 
without the Jewish Dispersion it is hard to see how there 
could have ever been a Christian empire. 

Yet the presence of the Jew throughout the Roman 
empire was but one expression of that flood-tide of cosmo- 
politanism of which the new faith took fullest advantage. 
Among all the striking phenomena that accompanied the 
evolution of the Roman empire, none is more marked than 
the migration of different cults. Generally speaking, these 
cults were national or ethnic, and their diffusion was the 
natural outcome of the new commercial conditions that led 
to a widespread immigration of oriental peoples into the 
western parts of the empire. With the Egyptian immigra- 
tion went the worship of Serapis, Isis, and Osiris; with the 
Phrygian, that of Sabizius (Bacchus) and Cybele; with the 
Persian, that of Mithra with its fascinating mysteries.^ By 
degrees these oriental faiths spread over the entire empire, 
and, as inscriptions testify, had their temples and devotees 
from the Tigris to the Atlantic and from the Rhine to the 
African desert. Their success was due, not merely to their 

1 This was by far the most important rival of Judaism and Christianity to the 
Roman empire. Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (see abstract of his Textes et 
monuments relatifs aux myst^res de Mithra), Open Court, 1903. In general, see the 
excellent chapters (4-6) of Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. 



The Messianic Fraternity 257 

novelty, but to their undoubted moral and religious 
superiority to classical heathenism. The culture of the 
period had long since outgrown mythology, and readily wel- 
comed the more or less absolute monotheism which was the 
common property of the invading cults. Quite as potent in 
their spread, also, was their insistence upon morality as 
inseparable from religion. Sin and repentance, punishment 
and forgiveness, were integral parts of all these oriental 
cults, and those who would accept them and be initiated 
into their mysteries were subjected to rigorous probation 
and highly dramatic initiatory rites. The ethical neutrality 
of the Roman and Greek mythologies could not for a 
moment survive before the moral passion, however distorted, 
of men who would submit to the bloody baptism of the 
taurobolium. If one recalls that in addition these new cults 
regarded the individual as something more than a member 
of a nation, and made immortality, with its rewards and 
punishments, central in all their teaching, their success is 
easily understood. 

It was characteristic of these religions that their followers 
should form communities. The vocabulary that is being 
discovered by the study of papyri^ is rich in words dealing 
with such groups of coreligionists. Their members were 
"brothers" (a3e\(^ot); they had their mysteries, their pass- 
words, prophets, sacraments, common meals, their priests 
and "elders."^ Between scattered fraternities there sprang 
up correspondence, bits of which have survived, while their 
members were always certain of a hospitable reception from 
their brethren in whatever city they might chance to arrive 
as travelers or pilgrims. 

The Jewish Dispersion was, therefore, by no means unique 
in an age of interpenetrating peoples and religions. Possibly 

1 See, for instance, Deissmann, Bible Studies, pp. 87, 88. 

2DEISSMANN, Bible Studies, pp. 233-35 (pp. 368 f.). He even finds an inscription 
in Caria throwing light on the white robes and palms of Rev. 7 : 9 f . 



258 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

it was the most widespread/ but from some of the evidence 
at our disposal it would seem as if it were by no means the 
most prosperous or possessed of the greatest contemporary 
influence. In Grseco-Eoman society the emigrant Jew, 
though exceptionally favored by the empire, was an object 
of no small hatred and derision.^ His unwillingness to eat 
food highly prized by heathen epicures, his refusal to work 
upon the sabbath, his apparent readiness to traffic in miracles, 
his religious pride, all served to remove him from the easy- 
going toleration of the current religious eclecticism. Yet 
Judaism was by no means without its influence upon the 
society into which it had penetrated.^ The same readiness 
to accept a monotheistic religion promising forgiveness of 
sin and a blessed immortality which made the non-Jewish 
oriental cults popular throughout the empire, led many per- 
sons, and that too by no means exclusively from the unedu- 
cated and lower classes, to become followers of Moses. In 
addition to such proselytes, there were many gentiles over 
whom Judaism exercised a greater or less influence. The 
Judaism of the Dispersion was less rigorous than that of 
Palestine, and was ready to tolerate, if not to encourage, 

1 Yet one must make large allowance for exaggeration in the words of Josephus, 
Against Apion, 11, 39. 

2 See, for instance, Hoeace, Satires, 1:4, 142 f.; Peesius, Satires, 5:178-84; 
Juvenal, Satires, 3:12-16; 14:96-106. On Jews as exorcists see Gebhaedt and 
Haenack, Texte, Vlll, last part, 107 ; Justin Maette, ApoL, 26 ; Trypho, 31. On the 
anti-Semitism of Alexandria see VON DobschCtz, American Journal of Theology, 
October, 1904. 

3 The influence of Hellenism on Judaism is just now a rather favorite subject 
of study. Pfleideeee (Urchristhenthum^) has discussed the matter in detail, and 
GuNKEL, has published the brochure already referred to, Zum religionsgeschicht- 
lichen Verstandniss des Neuen Testaments, in which the results of his earlier studies 
are concentrated upon this particular thesis. The works of Bousset and of Bacon 
[The Story of Paul) may also be mentioned. In my judgment, however, little has 
resulted as yet from these investigations which would justify one in magnifying the 
Hellenistic influence in the case of Paul. With Philo it is, of course, very different. 
But Pharisaism, in its broadest sense, best accounts for those phenomena of the 
apostle's thought which are not derivable from the evangelic facts. When we 
enter the second century, and especially when we meet Gnosticism, the case is 
radically different. 



The Messianic Fraternity 259 

those who would accept its teachings as expressing a new 
religious philosophy, while refusing to become completely 
identified with it as a cult. Thus around the "community" 
or " synagogue " of the Jewish colony in the various cities 
there sprang up two groups of non- Jewish converts : the 
proselytes and "those who feared God"^ and observed the 
general Mosaic regulations for keeping the sabbath and 
maintaining ceremonial purity. 

Nor was the religious influence of Judaism restricted to 
these limits.^ Even if one be indisposed to accept seriously 
the belief of some of the Jewish writers that Plato drew his 
teachings from Moses, there can be no doubt that the strong 
morality and uncompromising monotheism of Pharisaism 
was felt throughout the Grseco-Roman world quite outside 
the limits of those who were even loosely connected with 
the synagogue. Otherwise it would be hard to understand 
the literary warfare, offensive and defensive, carried on by 
Josephus and other Jewish apologists against heathen oppo- 
nents, and quite impossible to give proper credit to the 
literary output of Philo and the Alexandrines.^ Even more 
perplexing would be the observance of the sabbath in differ- 
ent parts of the empire by gentiles presumably not connected 
with the synagogue.* 

It is this widespread influence of Judaism that explains 

iThey are termed </)0i3ovjaevot rbi^ deov in Acts 10:2, 22; 13:16, 26; a-e^oixevoL rov deov 
in Acts 13:43; 16:14; 18:7; Josephus, Ant., xiv, 7:2; or briefly aefioixevoi as in Acts 
13:50; 17:4, 17. The expression of Acts 13:43, cr€|36|U.evot TrpocrrjAvTot, is unique and 
cannot be said to vitiate the above interpretation. See for full treatment (including 
discussion of parallel expressions of the inscriptions) ScHtJREE, Geschichte des 
jiidischen Volkes (3d ed.), Vol. Ill, pp. 122 f., esp. n. 66, and his essay, "Die Juden 
im bosporanischen Reiche und die Genossenschaft der cre/3djoievot tov 9eov v^lo-tov 
ebendaselbst," in Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akadeniie, 1897, pp, 200-225 ; Ramsat, 
Expositor, 1896, pp. 200 f . Yet contra see Beetholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und 
der Juden zu den Fremden, passim. 

2 See the article on "Proselytes " in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 

3 Cf. Philo, Vit Mos, 2:4; Josephus, Against Apia, 2 : 29. 

4 See ScHtJEEK, Geschichte der jiidischen Volkes^, Vol. Ill, p. 116, n. 45. In 
general see Beetholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden; 
Feiedlandee, Das Judenthum in der vorchristlichen griechischen Welt. 



260 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

in large part the rapid growth of Christianity during the 
apostolic period. When brought face to face with a heathen- 
ism unaffected by Jewish thought, the promise of an aquittal 
at a coming world- judgment, the story of a risen Jesus who 
was the first-fruits of all such followers of his who should 
die before the establishment of a glorious but un-political 
kingdom, made but little impression.^ To appreciate Jesus 
as Christ it was first necessary to have some knowledge of 
what the Christ should be, and this, at least in the Disper- 
sion, could be gained only through a knowledge of pharisaic 
messianism.^ As Acts and the Pauline literature make clear, 
the original members of the Christian communities were 
almost exclusively Jews, or gentiles who had either come 
under the influence of the Judaism of the synagogue or 
through the diffused influence of Jewish thought had a 
predisposition to the messianic program. The first great 
problem faced by the new faith was its relation to Judaism 
as a whole, notably to the observance of the Thorah ; the 
second was that of adjusting a faith in Jesus as the Christ 
soon to establish his kingdom, with the various non- Jewish 
or but semi-Jewish religious conceptions that obtained in 
Asia Minor and those cities of Europe in which oriental 
mysteries and cults had begun to regulate religious phi- 
losophy. This difference in apologetic and exposition is 
plainly seen by a comparison of Paul's letters to the Grala- 
tians and the Colossians, but it is even more pronounced 
when the Eevelation of John is compared with the prologue 
of the Fourth Grospel. Patristic theology shows similar con- 

1 Compare the reception of Paul's preaching by Athenians, Acts, chap. 17. It is 
hard to see why one should be forced to regard this speech as untrue to Paul's 
thought. Even if one were to rewrite history on a priori methods, what other kind 
of speech would the uneven spread of messianic Judaism make probable? 

2 This statement is not intended to imply that there were no differences between 
the messianism of the Dispersion and that of the '" Hebrew " Jews. But the evidence 
to be found in 8ih. Oracles and the early Christian "Visions" make it evident that 
it was Pharisaic rather than Zealot hopes that were to be found in the Dispersion. 



The Messianic Frateenity 2G1 

trasts, but throughout it8 earlier phases its apologetic consists 
largely of arguments showing that Jesus as Christ fulfils 
the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures.^ It was only 
when Christianity passed into the hands of professional 
philosophers and men of their spirit that its Jewish relations 
and heritage were neglected and replaced by the generalizing 
methods of the schools.^ 

The importance of the preparatory rOle played in apostolic 
Christianity by pharisaic Judaism is evidenced by what the 
author of the letter to the Hebrews calls "the matter of the 
beginning of the Christ," or "the foundation,"^ viz. : repent- 
ance from dead works and faith upon God, the teaching 
concerning baptism and the laying on of hands, the resur- 
rection from the dead and the age-judgment. Quite as 
plainly does it appear in the references in the Pauline litera- 
ture to the initial acts of those who formed the new com- 
munities. All such had abandoned evil courses to wait for 
the coming of God's Son and his kingdom.* The faith that 
introduced the convert into the new relationship with God 
was thus easily formulated; it was the acceptance of Jesus 
as the one who should do that expected of the Christ by 
Judaism, in so far as this expectation was not modified by 
the actual experiences of Jesus. In a word, the Christian 
churches were composed of those who sought justification — 
acquittal in the approaching messianic judgment — by faith 
— i. e., accepting Jesus as the eschatological Messiah. And 
this is no more true of Pauline churches than of the church 

1 See, for instance, the crude arguments of Barnabas and the elaborate treatise 
of Justin Martyr thrown in the form of a dialogue with a Jew Trypho. 

2 On this in general see Weenle, The Beginnings of Christianity, Vol. II, chaps. 
7 and 8 ; Haknack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, Bk. i, chap. 3. 

3Heb. 6:1, tov t^» o-pxn^ "^^^ Xpio-roO \6yov. 

4 In particular see 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:20; 3:13; Phil. 1:6, 10; Acts 17:7; Eom. 
8 : 23-25 ; 1 Cor. 1:8; 3 : 13 ; 6 : 9, 10 ; 15 : 23. Jews were undoubtedly members of these 
"gentile churches;" Gal. 2:9. Cf. the account of the founding of various Pauline 
churches in Acts. 



262 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

at Jerusalem. Its members also sought "salvation" by 
repentance and the acceptance of Jesus as the Christ who 
would admit them into his kingdom.^ 

It is not difficult, therefore, to realize the character of the 
first Christian communities. They were composed of those 
who believed in the necessity of being acquitted in the 
coming judgment, who had repented of their sins, who had 
accepted and professed Jesus as the founder of the coming 
kingdom, who attempted to embody in daily life the prin- 
ciples believed to dominate that kingdom, who had received 
new spiritual experiences, and who had joined themselves 
together into little communities in which the new spiritual 
gifts and capacities might better express themselves. 

II 

In a way the church in the apostolic teaching is an equiva- 
lent of the non-eschatological conception of the kingdom of 
God, held by Jesus, although this equivalence is not formal 
or recognized. Historically the church of the centuries is 
the perpetuation of that little band of disciples gathered by 
Jesus in Gralilee. This group of disciples must have carried 
over — actually did carry over — into their new brotherhood 
the ethical and religious, as well as the eschatological, teaching 
of their Master. They endeavored to live in his spiritual 
companionship as they had lived in his bodily presence, and 
their very meals were made sacred by the memory of a 
glorified Master and the thought of his unity with them- 
selves. They were those who were to be saved — the mem- 
bers of the approaching kingdom. Their bond was one of a 

1 Here again the demands of the historical process give new credibility to Acts. 
The early chapters of the book in the main express precisely what would be expected 
of persons under the influence of messianism. Whatever allowance one may make 
for redaction, it is impossible for one acquainted with Judaism to accept the dictum 
that a belief in justification by faith is an unfailing evidence of Pauline influence. 
If faith in Jesus did not help one past the coming judgment, for what conceivable 
reason should a Jew have accepted him as Christ ? 



The Messianic Frateknity 263 

common hope, a common enthusiasm, and a common experi- 
ence of God. As the older messianists had expected that 
Israel under the Messiah would be a chosen people, an 
instructed nation, a holy community, and a God-fearing 
generation,^ so the Christians became a community of those 
who were eternally to be with the Christ — the true Israel. 

Yet Jesus himself cannot be said to have originated the 
term "church." The Greek Old Testament had long before 
given it currency as the one word that represented the 
Hebrew people in its mingled aspects of nation and wor- 
shiping congregation. After the rise of scribism the word 
became a part of the vocabulary of Judaism. Evidently its 
content was very vague. In some general Jewish sense of 
"community" must Jesus have used the word, if, indeed, it 
ever passed his lips.^ He had, in fact, very little use for 
it. His group of disciples were not a congregation to be 
removed from the world; they were inceptively a new 
humanity. It is doubtless the fact that Jesus did not use 
any special word for his band of disciples except the "king- 
dom of God" that accounts for its absence in the vocabulary 
of the earliest Christian community. So completely were 
the apostles possessed of the eschatological conception of the 
kingdom as never to use it to denote their community, and 
for a short time the new movement seems to have lacked 
any recognized name. The disciples were first called Chris- 
tians at Antioch;^ at Jerusalem, during the first months of 
the new movement's life, they were not spoken of as a con- 
gregation, but, if any word was used except "they,"* they 
were styled "brethren,"^ "they that believed,"^ "the com- 
pany,"^ "the disciples,"^ as "those of the Way." ^ Soon, how- 
ever, the need of some self-designation made itself felt, and 

iPss. Sol., 17:32-42; 18: 7-9; Mh. Enoch, 39:6; Sib. Or., v, 431. 

2Matt. 16:18; 18:17. 3Acts.ll:26. ^Acts 1 :23, 26; 2:1, 4. 

5 Acts 1:15. 6 Acts 12:44. ^ Acts 4: 23. 

8Actsl6:l. 9Acts9:2. This term was never abandoned; c/. Acts 19:9. 



264 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

it was but natural that ifCfcXrjaia — "the community" — should 
have suggested itself. At all events the word appeared, 
though innocent of its later content. The Christian brothers 
still thought of themselves as a religious community, though 
not as one distinct from Judaism. They still worshiped in 
the temple, still attended synagogues, still kept the law. 
Anything like a distinctive organization, except for purposes 
of charity, was at first not needed. The Christians were 
Jews who had added to their Judaism a belief that Jesus 
was the Christ and saw in that fact no reason for abandon- 
ing, in any particular, their old life. Their common meals, 
their sharing of property with the poor, their devotion to 
the "apostles' teaching," were wholly consonant with the 
loyalty to their older cult. 

The rise of this undifferentiated group into a social insti- 
tution distinct from Judaism can be accounted for only by the 
success of Christianity in cities outside of Palestine. The 
church, like Pauline Christianity and the New Testament 
canon, was the product of missions. As long as they were 
hemmed in by Jewish environment, the "brethren" from the 
point of view of Judaism were but Sectaries. Out in the 
great Grseco-Roman world they were forced into a process of 
social evolution, and they were Christians. When, as always, 
the synagogue in which some apostle had first preached was 
closed to his converts, it was but natural that they should 
meet in some house or public lecture-hall for the social wor- 
ship and instruction.^ There again they adopted Jesus' 
word and were disciples or brothers. As the brotherhood in 
Jerusalem resembled in some particulars Jewish societies, 
so elsewhere it was superficially^ not unlike the fraternities 
among the lower classes of the Roman empire which met 
regularly for various purposes, notably for the maintenance 

1 Acts 19:9. 

2 This modification is decidedly important. The similarities between the two 
sorts of fraternities may easily be over-emphasized. 



The Messianic Fraternity 265 

of a burial fund. Each fraternity of this sort would have 
had a fraternal meal, and some more or less rudimentary 
initiation.^ The Christians had this memorial meal and their 
initiatory baptism. But the Christian brotherhood was 
vastly different from those it superficially resembled. Al- 
though later it apparently found legal protection as a burial 
society, during its first years it was exclusively a religious 
fraternity composed of men and women who had accepted 
Jesus as the Christ, and who met to recall his death and his 
promises of speedy return. Their meetings, if one may 
judge from the words of Paul, Pliny, and even of Justin 
Martyr, were not mere banquets, but for religious purposes. 
Nor were the churches rigidly organized. Once gathered, 
the brothers seem to have been under no ritualistic bonds, 
but each was at liberty to express the new life of the spirit 
according "as God had given to each man a measure of 
faith." Nothing could have been more informal — one sing- 
ing, another exhorting, another prophesying, another inter- 
preting the otherwise unintelligible utterances of a brother 
"with a tongue." Indeed, there was even danger that such 
meetings should become a babel, and Paul never showed 
clearer administrative sagacity than when he advised that 
all religious gatherings should be carried on decently and in 
order.^ 

It would be a serious mistake, however, to think of the 
Christian fraternity, or i/c/c\7]o-La, as having no more organic 
unity than a neighborhood prayer-meeting. As an actual 
group of men and women it antedated its assemblings. In 
this it more closely resembled the communities of the Jewish 
and Syrian dispersion than the burial fraternity. The com- 

1 Oq the churches as collegia see Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 
pp. 431f. ; BoissiEE, La Religion Romaine, Vol. II, pp. 338 f. ; Renan, Marc-Aurdle, 
pp. 375 f.; ScHiLiLEE, Geschichte der Rdmischen Kaisei'zett, Vol. II, pp. 447 f. Dill, 
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelitis, chap. 3, gives a good general account 
of the collegia. 

2 See this discussion in 1 Cor. 14 : 26-40. 



266 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

munity existed even when dispersed, and its members were 
always to live as the followers of their Christ, the fellow- 
heirs of his glory. 

By origin, therefore, social, it was inevitable that social 
evolution should have soon begun within a church. As the 
fraternity grew, the need of officers was felt, and, under the 
guidance of the apostles, the fraternity undertook to supply 
its need. With the exception of the shadowy attempt to 
maintain the number of the Twelve by the choice by lot of 
Matthias, in the entire differentiation of the officials of the 
different fraternities there was no appeal to any directions of 
Jesus. To make such an appeal to authority would have 
been contrary to the spirit of Paul, but not to that of the 
Jerusalem church, and it is therefore safe to say that Jesus 
had left no directions for church polity. The little congre- 
gations were free to organize as fast and as far and in such 
ways as they saw fit. This absence of specific directions 
from Jesus accounts for the course taken by the organization 
of the various Christian groups. In the church at Jerusa- 
lem, dissatisfaction with the apostles' administration of 
charity funds led first of all to the choice of seven men whose 
duty it became to attend to such matters. They, however, 
like the apostles, soon preferred preaching to charity work, 
and a few years after their appointment we find the "con- 
gregations" of the Christians organized like the synagogue 
" congregations" of the Jews, with an executive committee 
known as the "elders." In other words, left by Jesus 
without any specific directions for organization, the early 
Christians followed the natural course, and turned to the 
synagogue as a model. The "elder" was the characteristic 
officer of the East, whether one looks to Egypt ^ or Judea; 
but in Judea especially was he an official with distinct ad- 

1 Cf. Hatch, Organization of the Early Christian Churches, pp. 55 f. ; Deissmann, 
Bible Studies, pp. 154f., 233-35. 



The Messianic Fraternity 267 

ministrative functions. Nothing was easier, therefore, than 
for the Jewish Christian fraternities to appoint their elders, 
and to model the order of service in their meetings after that 
of the synagogue. Among the gentile Christians the reasons 
for the appearance of elders is not far to seek. In most 
Grseco-Roman cities the governing body was known by some 
word implying seniority, and similar terms were applied to 
teachers of philosophies and probably to the heads of various 
heathen fraternities. If we add that the gentile churches 
were commonly founded and organized by Jews, it is not 
difficult to see that among them also the body of elders 
would be the administrative organ most to be expected. 

Difficult as it is to trace church organization in the later 
New Testament books, we can still see that by the time the 
letter to Philippi was written it had evidently proceeded 
some distance toward its later form, for we find bishops^ and 
deacons.^ In the Pastoral Epistles, although new officials 
are not clearly named, there is evidence of marked advance 
in the precision with which the duties of the various officials 
are described.^ 

Just what functions the elders or bishops performed is 
apparent from a number of statements in the New Testa- 
ment. They had the general superintendence, they were 
the '^yovfievoL of the churches; in the Pastoral Epistles at 
least they were teachers; but most of all were they the 
pastors of the flocks God had intrusted to their care.* Such 
a union of responsibilities made toward officialism, and even 
in an apostolic father like Clement the presbyter and bishops 
are of recognized rank, and to reduce them to the plane of 
the ordinary church member warranted serious expostulation.^ 

1 The eTTio-KOTTo?, among the Greeks, was a communal officer, who (at least in the 
case of Rhodes) held a religious office; Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 230, It would 
be natural for it to come into use among Greek Christians as Trpecr/SvTepos did among 
the Jewish. 

2 Phil. 1:1. 3 For instance, 1 Tim. 3 : 1 f . ; Tit. 1 : 7. 
* See 1 Pet. 5 : 1 ; 1 Tim. 3:8. 5 j Clement, chaps. 1-3. 



268 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

But the elders were but one class of officers in the early 
church. Then, as always, there was a constant tendency 
toward a division of labor along the same lines as later 
marked the cleavage between the laity and the clergy, the 
secular clergy and the monks. As the apostles had pre- 
ferred the ministry of the word to the ministry of tables, 
and as Philip the administrator of charity became Philip 
the evangelist, so the elders seem to have gradually dele- 
gated their charity work largely to deacons. But they were 
not the only persons who ministered to the churches in spir- 
itual things. Alongside of the executive committee of the 
Christian congregation were many men — and some women 
— whose duty it was to exercise their "charism" and to 
prophesy, to teach, to catechize, and to provide in various 
ways for the religious life of the community. It is impos- 
sible to say when such classes of workers first appeared, but 
doubtless almost from the start, for in Paul's letters to the 
Corinthians we find them catalogued at length. Thus clearly 
was Christianity from the start constructively social. 

Such an evolution of an organization by the differentia- 
tion of officers is certainly a common enough phenomenon, 
and might very well be dismissed thus summarily, were it 
not for the interpretation given it by Paul. He sees in it 
all something more than mere utilitarianism. It is all the 
work of the Spirit, in other words, of the new life of the 
individual believers. The unification of believers in any 
city was not the only expression of the Christian life; 
besides it there was the distribution of %a/3tcr/^aTa. By one 
classification^ there were accordingly apostles, prophets, 
teachers, miracle-workers, healers, helpers, administrators, 
those who spoke with tongues; by another^ and simpler, 
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. This 
distribution of gifts, however, Paul insists was economic, 

U Cor. 12: 28. 2Eph.4:ll. 



The Messianic Fraternity 269 

intended, not for the happiness of those who possess them, 
but for the building up of the church. He even carries 
his thought farther, and not only sees that all the xaptVyLtaTa 
— of wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of 
miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues and inter- 
pretation of tongues^ — the work of "the one and the same 
Spirit," are given for "ministration," but also declares that 
apart from love they are worthless. Thus with him, as with 
Jesus, the final test of life is not its ability to receive, but 
to confer, benefits. It is no mere happy coincidence that in 
his words to the Ephesian elders he used an otherwise lost 
saying of the Master: "It is more blessed to give than to 



III 

It is from the point of view of the church as a corporate 
expression of the regenerate life influenced in its organiza- 
tion by its environment, but not by messianism, that we can 
best appreciate the further teaching of Paul concerning the 
church as — with excuses to the sociologists — an organism, 
or, to use his own word, a body. In this conception there 
is to be seen something like a development in the Pauline 
thought. In the Roman letter, while he is especially swayed 
by his messianic predilections, he insists mostly upon the 
individual believer's functions, not so much as a member of 
a social group as one who is presently to be granted the 
completion of his hopes in the resurrection of the body and 
the entrance into the heavenly kingdom. Yet even there is 
to be seen in a summary form the conception of the church 
as the body of Christ. "As we have many members in one 
body, and all members have not the same office, so we, who 
are many, are one body in Christ and severally members 
one of another."^ This analogy he had previously elabo- 

U Cor. 12:7-11. 2 Acts 20: 35. sRom. 12:4, 5. 



270 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

rated most strikingly in his letter to the Corinthians/ The 
Christian community, he says, is the body of Christ — i. e., 
that within which the Spirit of Christ dwells ; but a body is 
a unity only in the sense that it is a combination of mem- 
bers, each of which performs its own and indispensable 
functions. So is it with the individual in the church: his 
function, be it apparently never so humble, is legitimate, 
and therefore the individual himself is needed for the effi- 
ciency of the body of which he is a member. The very 
bread and wine of the memorial meal, he reminds the 
Corinthians, are symbols of, or rather the means of main- 
taining, the common life of individuals with their Lord.'' 
This may appear culpable high-churchism on the part of the 
apostle, but he has something more advanced to teach. 
This union with Christ through the church is no mere 
rhetorical matter; it is as real as the living of a man with a 
prostitute.^ Of isolated Christians, of unattached Chris- 
tians, of Christians who would willingly give up their 
fellowship — KOLvcovLa — with their brethren, the apostolic 
age could not conceive. To cast a member forth from the 
body of Christ was to turn him over to Satan for the 
destruction of the flesh.* Later, unless we quite mistake 
Paul's views, in the letters of the imprisonment, this eccle- 
siastical thought became even more prominent. As the 
messianic kingdom was the mediating concept by the aid 
of which Paul arrived at his conception of the atonement of 
Christ, so the church became almost exclusively the medi- 
ating concept by which he arrived at his thought of the 
relation of the individual Christian to Christ as a matter of 
actual life.^ 

If this be the thought in the more messianic epistles, 
one is justified in expecting that it will be all the more 

1 1 Cor. 12 : 12-27. 2 1 Cor. 10 : 15-17. 3 1 Cor. 6 : 15. 

41 Cor. 5:5. SEph. 1:23; 4:1-16; 5:29-32. 



The Messianic Fraternity 271 

prominent when the apostle writes under the influence of 
Judaic-Grecian philosophy. Nor will such expectations be 
disappointed. The transition has been made almost uncon- 
sciously from the consideration of the separate churches scat- 
tered over the empire, each with its own peculiar %a/3tcr/L6aTa, 
to the genuinely Greek conception of the generic church 
involved in the various local bodies. The Church has sup- 
planted the churches. But the figure — if one may, indeed, 
call it a figure — of the organism is also carried to its inev- 
itable completion. As the individual Christians constitute 
the body of the local church, so now they form the Church 
universal, and Christ is now head, not of the individual 
man, as in 1 Cor. 3:1, but of his body, the Church.^ From 
this the step was easy to the thought of the church as essen- 
tial to the Christ. It was his "fulness." Yet still the 
economic idea is maintained. God again spoke through 
prophets that men may be "edified." The church shared 
in the life of the Christ only that it may more perfectly 
carry on his work. And this work, it will be recalled, was 
itself organized, different individuals performing the various 
functions allotted them by the Spirit. Thus Christ worked 
through the social unity resulting from Christian life in 
different individuals. It is this thought that is expressed 
in perhaps the boldest expression of the thought of a social 
organism ever given by any writer — the prayer of Paul for 
the churches to whom the Ephesian epistle was written. 
He prays that they may "grow up in all things into him 
who is the head, even Christ, from whom all the body, fitly 
framed and knit together through that which every joint 
supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each 
several part, maketh the increase of the body imto the 
building up of itself in love."^ 

lEph. 5:23. 
2Eph. 4:15, 16. 



272 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

IV 

A fact of the first importance here comes into light. 
This social organism, composed of regenerate men each per- 
forming his special function under the direction of the Spirit, 
is not human society as a whole, but the church, a community 
within society. The relation of the church to society at large 
was one of election for salvation. It was indeed a commu- 
nity whose real interests were "other worldly." God had 
graciously selected them from the world. For the world 
at large was evil. It had lost its God,^ and in consequence 
was full of vices.^ The nearest approach Paul makes to a 
general social philosophy, however, is here. The fact of sin 
leads him away from individualism to a generic human soli- 
darity. Humanity as a unit sinned in Adam ; and in Adam 
all died. Characteristically, too, Paul makes sin the social- 
ized result of the prostitution of the religious nature. The 
heathen world entered upon the hideous conditions por- 
trayed in the opening chapter of the letter to the Eomans 
by turning from a knowable God to idols. Every other sort 
of prostitution followed. To reverse this condition of affairs, 
to reinstate the religious nature to its normal position, is 
the work of Christ. But despite certain of his expressions 
that sound contradictory, Paul teaches that the new society 
formed by Christ is not composed of all men and is not 
created en masse. It grows, as has already appeared, through 
individuals as such assuming through faith in Jesus the 
proper relation with God [KaTaWayrj) and, in obedience to 
the new life, joining one another in a social group in which 
the new life in Christ finds its expression. 

Such a philosophy immediately carries a modern thinker 
across to the hope of a gradual transformation of society by 
this new and evidently dynamic group. But apostolic Chris- 
tianity never took the step. The church was not conceived 

lEph. 2:12. 2Rom. 1:19-23, 24^32. 



The Messianic Fraternity 273 

of as a source of social transformation. It was itself "an 
elect race, a chosen priesthood, a holy nation,"^ but it was 
not the salt of the earth. In the apostolic literature one 
will look in vain for a single injunction to convert the 
world, or to save the world. Individuals were to be saved 
from the world and enter the new kingdom when it should 
appear; but the world itself was lost. 

11 Pet. 2:5-9. 



CHAPTER II 

THE MESSIANIC FRATERNITY IN AN EVIL AGE 

When one considers in more detail the relations of the 
new Christian fraternity to the age and society in which it 
lived, the contrast between inherited messianism and Chris- 
tianity as a life becomes even more evident. 



It is only what might have been expected both from the 
temper of Jesus and from their own insistence upon the 
eschatological kingdom of God, when we find the apostles 
possessed of a conservatism in social matters amounting 
almost to indifference. The early church was not a society 
for ethical culture, much less a society for social reform. It 
was a body of religionists devoted to their faith in a revealed 
plan of God for their salvation, who were awaiting the coming 
of their salvation from the "flesh" and death and sin, and 
were endeavoring in an evil age to live as if citizens of 
heaven. As such its members at times ran dangerously near 
to antinomianism, and at other times to legalism, but always 
because of their devotion to their religious convictions. 
Throughout the apostolic age Christian morality was the 
outgrowth of religious faith, and social duties were therefore 
derivative rather than primary. 

But morality was by no means secondary. Repentance 
was as truly demanded as faith. A bad man could not be 
a Christian, and a Christian ought to be a good man. The 
prophecies had been fulfilled ; the law had been superseded ; 
the new life begotten of faith in God's love was now to be 
lived. Therein lay the supreme duty of the Christian while 
he waited for the appearance of the kingdom. 

274 



Messianic Frat.ernity in an Evil Age 275 

From this point of view one appreciates both the genetic 
and the fragmentary character of the apostolic teachings 
upon matters of conduct and social convention. They are 
not a new legal code, or speculations upon the social bear- 
ings of the new faith ; they are solutions of definite problems 
with which early Christianity was confronted. As in the 
case of the churches of Thessalonica, Galatia, and Rome cir- 
cumstances forced Paul to develop the theological content of 
the new messianic faith, so in the case of these and every 
other church the necessity of actually living in accordance 
with a faith in the messiahship of Jesus led the apostles to 
point out the ethical and social principles it involved. 
Throughout Paul's correspondence his instructions consti- 
tute less a system or program than the advice of a practical 
man based upon the teaching of Jesus and his own spiritual 
illumination.^ His temper of mind is the farthest possible 
from that of a social doctrinaire. He was not endeavoring 
to reform society, to legislate for all time, or to champion a 
paper utopia. He was simply endeavoring to make plain to 
men and women who had but recently shared in the practices 
of the heathen society of which they were still members, the 
lines of conduct consonant with their new life and their 
faith in a rapidly approaching kingdom. One may, indeed, 
be even more specific: the social ethic of the apostles, and 
especially of Paul, consists in directions as to how a member 
of a Christian church should live in the various cities of the 
Roman empire during the first century of our era, that life 
which he expected to live in the coming kingdom. To 
understand such teaching one must understand the actual 
historical conditions it was intended to meet. 

The problem before the student, therefore, is quite as 
much historical as exegetical; or, rather, just because it is 
exegetical it is historical, and any complete presentation of 

1 Cf. 1 Cor. 7 : 10 with 12, and see also 1 Cor. 7 : 25, 40. 



276 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

the apostolic thought must rest, not upon a collection of 
detached teachings, but upon a careful estimate of such 
teachings in the light both of the apostolic messianism and 
of the social environment of those to whom they were 
addressed. 

As soon as one takes this historical point of view, one 
characteristic of the apostolic teaching becomes apparent. 
So far from resembling the efforts of many others who have 
attempted to induce men to adopt the same standards of life, 
it favored no eccentricity, it proposed no revolution. The 
kingdom of God, with its regenerate institutions, was in 
heaven and not on earth. The apostolic ethics, in so far as 
it concerns social relations, is always formulated with the 
intent of preserving Grseco-Koman society as far as possible. 
If we except the church itself, neither Paul or any other 
apostle introduced a new social institution. The early Chris- 
tians, so far as we know, were born, married, toiled, and 
were buried as were their fellow-citizens of the empire. 
Like their master, the apostles were constantly on their 
guard lest their converts should mistake enthusiasm to 
reform other people for Christian character. Such an atti- 
tude of mind was not only the outcome of that indifference 
to existing evils born of their belief in the speedy coming of 
Christ. It was undoubtedly that in large part, but it also 
involved an appreciation of the actual situation in which the 
Christian communities found themselves. The Koman empire 
looked with increasing suspicion upon fraternities of all sorts 
— barring perhaps burial fraternities — and Paul especially 
knew only too well the danger which lay in any social 
extravagances. He would not even consent to destroying 
such conventionalities as the length of a Christian's hair, or 
a woman's wearing of a veil.^ Above all, he tried to keep 
his converts free from even an appearance of social unrest. 

11 Cor. 11:14-16. 



Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age 277 

"Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called," 
he told the restless Corinthians. " Wast thou called being 
a slave? care not for it. Was any man called being cir- 
cumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Hath any 
been called in uncircumcision ? let him not be circumcised. 
Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art 
thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. The time is 
shortened, that henceforth both those that have wives may 
be as though they had none; and those that weep, as 
though they wept not; and those that rejoice, as though 
they rejoiced not; and those that buy, as though they 
possessed not ; and those that use the world, as not using it 
to the full; for the fashion of this world passeth away."^ 
And all apostolic teaching was to the same effect. "Be sub- 
ject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," "Let 
no man suffer as a meddler in other men's affairs,"^ are 
hardly the words of an agitator. Even when an outraged 
heart breaks forth in apocalyptic visions foretelling the 
doom of the beast whose number is 666 — the Roman empire 
itself^ — there is no call for revolt, but rather a eulogium of 
the martyrs who cry to God from beneath the altar.* 

It would be a misinterpretation of early Christianity, 
however, if at this point we should declare with Paulsen^ 
that the early Christians belittled courage and opposed 
aggressive struggle with enemies. Such a position has, it is 
true, a superficial justification in the maxims of Jesus against 
contests, and in the well-known willingness of the Christians 

11 Cor. 7:18-24, 27-31. And yet Paulsen {Ethics, Eng. trans., p. 66) declares that 
" true Christianity may always be recognized by the fact that it seems strange and 
dangerous to the world." See also the even more exaggerated statement of Leslie 
Stephen, Social Rights and Duties, Vol. I, p. 22. 

21 Pet. 2:13; 4:16. 

3 Clemen, "Die Zahl des Tieres, A^toc. 13: IS, '' Zeitschrift filr die neutestament- 
liche Wissenschaft, 1901, pp. 109-14. For a curious error in this article, which, 
however, hardly afEects its main position, see Biblical World, Vol. XVIII (1901), p. 76. 

*Rev. 6:9; 13:18. ^Ethics, Eng. trans., pp. 69 f. 



278 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

to suffer martyrdom. But courage, or, better, virility, is 
something other than militarism, and in its moral sense is 
the constant watchword of the New Testament writers. 
"Quit yourselves like men,"^ "fight without beating the 
air"^ "put on the whole panoply of God"^ — these are cer- 
tainly not the words of a man who could suffer and submit, 
but nothing more. The difference between the Greek and the 
Christian courage is not so much in the attitude of mind as 
in the enemies one must withstand. The Greek or Roman 
found his enemies in the enemies of his state; the enemies 
of the Christian were just as real, but they were not flesh 
and blood, but angels and devils and evil passions.* It was 
against these, and not against an existing society in any of 
its phases, that the early Christians struggled. They could 
die for their faith, but they would not draw the sword for its 
defense. The Lord with his kingdom was at hand to destroy 
the lawless one with the breath of his mouth ^ 

II 

It was wholly consonant with this anti-revolutionary 
attitude toward society, the invariable accompaniment of 
apocalyptic messianism, that one chief aim of the apostolic 
ethics was to preserve as pure as possible the new life which 
had been awakened in the Christian. As may well be 
imagined, innumerable dangers threatened Christian morality 
from its social environment. Grseco-Roman civilization in 
Paul's day had not, it is true, reached its period of decadence, 
nor were its morals quite as dark as Seneca and the satirists 
would have one believe ; yet it was by no means calculated 
to help one live the life of the spirit. Animalism was either 
magnified or treated as morally neutral by men not at all 
vicious, and in every city the masses almost inevitably grew 

ilCor.l6:13. n Cor. 9:26. 3Eph. 6:llf. 

* Eph. 6 : 12. 6 2 Thess. 2:8; Cf. Pss. of Sol. 17 : 39. 



Messianic Fkateenity in an Evil Age 279 

debased. Today's society threatens strikingly similar dan- 
gers to Christian idealism, but never were programs more 
opposed than that of the twentieth-century reformer and 
that of the apostles. The modern reformer endeavors to 
make honesty, purity, and other Christian virtues more 
easily realizable by changing the social environment in 
which men struggle. As Jesus might have said, he seeks 
to increase the harvest by improving the earth in which the 
seed of the kingdom is planted. But this recourse to a 
regenerated society as an aid to the individual Christian, 
Paul and the other apostles never made. As far as we can 
learn, no one of them ever proposed to make Christian 
morality more practicable through the destruction of the 
evils to which it was exposed. There was to be no com- 
promise with the world, but neither was the world to be 
converted. 

Yet asceticism, the last resource of pessimistic righteous- 
ness, was never urged upon the struggling Christian com- 
munities. It is, indeed, rather common to find the opposite 
asserted,^ but at the expense either of a definition of asceticism 
or of a true exposition of apostolic thought. The point of 
view of the apostles was not that of those who regard misery 
as the royal road to holiness, or of those who would have 
men leave social life in order to live to God ; but rather that 
of those who have adopted a new standard of values. For 
them that alone in life is of importance which was to extend 
over into the heavenly kingdom. The application of such 
a standard will give results which superficially resemble 
asceticism, but which are really nothing of the sort. For 
instance, it is not an injunction to asceticism to tell a person 
who knows the moral impulses that come from religious 
experiences and whose highest ethical imperative is "where- 
unto you have already attained by that same standard walk," 

1 So, for instance, by Paulsen, Ethics^ Eng. trans., pp. 91 f., and Thtlly, Intro- 
duction to Ethics, p. 190, note. 



280 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

that there are distractions in marriage, and that since the 
Lord is soon to appear and to end the marriage relation, one 
had better choose a life in which he can more completely and 
easily devote himself to moral endeavor/ Asceticism would 
say that marriage is contaminating, or that there is merit in 
celibacy, and such opinions neither Paul nor any apostle to 
our knowledge ever held.^ The insistence of Jesus upon 
the necessity of his disciples remaining in the world rather 
than becoming recluses or monks is echoed repeatedly in 
Paul. He is insistently opposed to anything that would 
detract from neigborliness or the legitimate enjoyments of 
those whose Master both in words and practice had rejected 
asceticism. 

It is the same standard of values that explains the indif- 
ference of the earlier interpreters of Jesus to social evils 
like slavery and prostitution. Jesus had indeed said nothing 
directly against either evil, but it is clear that the man who 
would love his neighbor as himself could not long endure to 
see his neighbor either a slave or a prostitute, and, as Chris- 
tian history shows abundantly, must endeavor to end both 
institutions by law. We should have expected that an 
apostle would have been as eager for such reforms as a 
modem philanthropist, and, as will presently appear, within 
the limits of the Christian community itself equality and 
social purity were unceasingly, passionately urged; but in 
all the apostolic literature both slavery and prostitution are 
accepted as abiding elements in a wicked world. They 
would perish only with the age. There is no more striking 
picture of a radical submitting to a social evil he saw was 
incompatible with his own ideals than that furnished in the 
little letter of Paul to Philemon in which the apostle 

ilCor. 7:29, 31, 32. 

2 While we cannot deny that Paul regards the unmarried state as superior to the 
married, the entire discussion contained in 1 Cor., chap. 7, will dispossess a fair 
mind of any predisposition to discover within it genuine asceticism. 



Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age 281 

recounts how, as one result of having converted his friend's 
runaway slave Onesimus, he was sending him back "a 
brother beloved"^ to a slavery from which he had safely 
escaped. The apostles have, indeed, many words of counsel 
and exhortation for both master and slaves. The master is 
not to threaten his slaves, since they both have one Master 
with whom there is no respect of persons,^ and he is to treat 
them with justice and equality.^ Directions for the conduct 
of slaves are also numerous, as one might expect, but all to 
the same effect. Slaves are to be obedient,* as servants of 
Christ. A position in which a man was both a slave and a 
brother was certainly anomalous, and, had it not been for 
the hope that the new age with its readjustments was close 
at hand, unendurable. Some slaves must have seen this, as 
possibly the runaway Onesimus; but more certainly those 
Christian slaves who, as we know from 1 Tim. 6:1, were 
tempted to look with contempt upon a Christian master who 
did not emancipate them. 

That, notwithstanding his refusal even to hint at eman- 
cipation, Paul could also write that "m Christ there is 
neither bond nor free"^ shows the difference between the 
standards when applied to the coming kingdom and when 
applied to the age that was to end within the lifetime, pos- 
sibly, of the slave himself. That the two conceptions did 
not affect one another is the clearest possible evidence of the 
failure of Paul to see the social bearing of Christianity. 

The attitude of the apostle toward prostitution and other 
evils which depended upon sin rather than upon misfortune 
and law is not radically different from that displayed by 
them toward slavery, though no fornicator or otherwise 
licentious person was to be permitted to live within the 
Christian community or could hope to enter the kingdom of 

iPhilem.16. 2Eph.6:9. 3 Col. 4:1. 

*Epli.6:5; Col. 3:22; Tit. 2:9; 1 Pet. 2 : 18-25. 5Gal. 3:28. 



282 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

God.^ Yet, so far as we know, no effort was made by the 
apostolic church to reduce or control prostitution and other 
vices by law, or in any way except by the conversion of the 
evil-doers themselves. Apostolic Christianity at this point 
was thoroughly individualistic. The Christian as such was 
to be chaste; society would always be licentious. Paul 
expressly implies that prostitution is a permanent factor of 
un-Christian society, and that it is impossible for the Chris- 
tian, in Corinth at least, to avoid associating with fornica- 
tors. In such a case he must needs go out of the world — 
a saying which marks the nearest approach to cynicism 
contained in apostolic literature. 

In matters which involved neither the distinction between 
the flesh and the spirit, nor the liability to charges of revolu- 
tion, Paul's attitude is singularly moderate. The majority 
of the members of his churches had been heathen. 'Before 
their acceptance of Jesus as Christ they had shared in the 
beliefs which characterized the masses of the Grseco-Roman 
world. Few of them had been cultured,^ and can hardly 
have been possessed of that indifference to the minutiae 
of conventional religion which marked the freethinkers of 
the empire. Idolatry and the mass of customs which it 
engendered had been the real forces in their lives. Now 
they had abandoned idols and turned to the worship of the 
living God. But they had no more withdrawn from their 
world than had the primitive Christians withdrawn from the 
Jewish world. But their situation was far more perplexing 
than that of the Jerusalem community. They were still 
living in the environment of the innumerable customs which 
pagan society had inherited with its cults. First of all was 
the idol itself. What should be the attitude of the Chris- 
tian toward it? The answer which the apostolic church 
made is very simple and to be expected. Idolatry was radi- 

U Cor. 5:9, 10; 6:9; Eph. 5:5; Heb. 12:16; 13:4; 1 Tim. 1:10; Rev. 21:8; 22:15. 
2 1 Cor. 1:26, 28. 



Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age 283 

cally different from Judaism, and Christians were to keep 
from all worship of idols/ The reasons for such an attitude 
seem patent enough, but they are not those of Paul. He 
argues at length to show that while an idol, as every Chris- 
tian would realize, was nothing at all,^ since there was no 
God but one, at the same time the things which the millions 
of the empire sacrificed to idols they sacrificed to demons. 
Idolatry was, therefore, impossible for the Christian. How 
could he drink the cup of Christ at the Lord's Supper and 
the cup of demons ? That would be to provoke the Lord to 
jealousy.^ But such general instruction, even if literally 
followed, could not prevent a complication of social life. 
Much of the meat which had been offered for sale in the 
shops had been previously dedicated to some idol. Should 
the Christian eat it and so far recognize the idol as an ex- 
isting fact ? The Corinthian church divided on the ques- 
tion: There were the "weak brethren," and the "strong 
brethren." The Pauline position was distinctly that of the 
latter.* The Christian could eat anything, provided he did 
not make it a matter of conscience. Even when at a dinner 
he was not to ask questions of his host for conscience' sake, 
but was to eat what was set before him without attempting 
to discover whether or not his meat had been dedicated at 
some heathen shrine. If, however, some "weak" brother 
was troubled by this superiority to moral casuistry, the 
brother who was "strong" was not to eat. His self-denial, 

1 1 Cor. 10: 14; 1 John 5: 21. The hatred of idolatry shown by the early church 
is seen in such passages as 1 Cor. 5:11; 6:9; 2 Cor. 6:16; Gal. 5:20; Eph. 5:5; Col. 
3 : 5 ; 1 Pet. 4:3; Rev. 2 : 14, 20 ; 21 : 8 ; 22 : 15. The degeneration that followed idolatry 
is realistically traced in the first chapter of Romans. A somewhat less severe 
picture is given in Acts 14 : 8-18. Whether Paul would actually identify idols and 
demons we may weQ doubt, but the worship of idols was not of them (for they were 
nothing), but of the demons with whom the Christian was always at war. 

2 1 Cor. 8:4. 

3 1 Cor. 10: 20, 22. More fundamental is Paul's classification of idolatry with the 
works of the a-ap^, Gal. 5:20; but this conception is not exploited, although a hint 
of it may be found in Eph. 5:5; Phil. 3 : 19. In this connection also see Rev. 9 : 30. 

4 1Cor.8:lf.; 10:19; c/. Rev. 2: 11, 20. 



284 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

however, is clearly declared by Paul, not to be for his own 
advantage, but for that of the "weak brother,"^ and an ex- 
pression of Christian love. Knowledge (yvcaac^) was indeed 
desirable, but, unless controlled by love, it might lead to 
unchristian arrogance.^ 

For love was the fruit of the Spirit.^ Faith itself was 
energized by it,* and love alone gave value to the "gifts" 
the Christian might expect to possess.^ Nor was there to be 
any limitation in the expression of the virtue. If apostolic 
Christianity felt no responsibility for establishing a Chris- 
tian civilization, it most emphatically did feel the respon- 
sibility of treating all men, whether or not of the house- 
hold of faith, with self-sacrificing love. The apostolic 
literature abounds in exhortations to treat all men in the 
spirit of Christ. "Avenge not yourselves, beloved," says 
Paul to the Romans,^ "but give place unto the wrath 
of God; for it is written. Vengeance belongeth unto me; I 
will recompense, saith the Lord. But if thine enemy 
hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him to drink. Be not 
overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." And to 
the Galatians^ he wrote: "Let us work that which is good 
toward all men." With humanity once possessed of such a 
spirit, the new age would indeed have dawned. 

Ill 

The fact is, however, that the apostolic thought does not 
carry this great principle of Jesus to its logical conclusion. 
Apostolic teaching regarding social relations concerns the 

1 The issue here is not that of Eom. 14 : 13-22, but the underlying and controlling 
principle is the same. Cf. 1 Cor. 10:23, 33; 11:1. On vegetarianism in the ancient 
world see Von DoBSCHtJTZ, Die urchristliche Gemeinde, pp. 274-76. 

21 Cor. 8: If. 3 Gal. 5:22. 

4 Gal. 5:6. 5 i Cor., chap. 13. 

6 Rom. 12 : 19-21. Note the recurrence of the judgment motif. 

76:10. C/. Rom. 15:2; Heb. 12:14; 13:2. 



Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age 285 

church and its members rather than society at large. The 
ethical and social teachings of Peter and Paul would have 
been almost meaningless to any but those who shared in 
their faith. A Christian society was evidently expected by 
them to result from the segregation of Christians, rather 
than from the transformation of an ^mpire. Christian 
civilization, paradoxically enough, was a by-product of 
apostolic Christianity. 

The reasons for this surprising fact do not lie in any 
indifference of the early Christians to others. Where could 
one find more devoted servants of their time than the 
humble men who faced all the perils of their time, rejoicing 
in opposition, nay death itself, if only Christ were preached 
and so the "time be redeemed" by bringing to others 
the news of the possibility of their salvation? Or where 
more noble directions to do good to all men? Or where 
can we find a more passionate lament than that of Paul 
over the indifference of the Jews to his gospel? He is 
ready even to be accursed for their sakes, and, what is more, 
out of his sorrow and his belief in the divine absolution, 
constructs a prophecy, not yet fulfilled, that at last, moved 
with envy at the sight of gentiles enjoying the blessings 
properly their own, the Jews as a people will repent and 
join the Christian community. Indeed, he is even ready to 
postpone the second coming of Christ until this glorious 
consummation is attained.^ 

No, the reasons are quite other, and in the explanation 
do we see again the fundamental contrast recognized by the 
apostle between Christian life and Christian messianism. In 
the first place, the division of labor, so to speak, within the 
church was wholly dependent upon the Spirit. If he gave 
some person the gift of apostleship or of evangelization, 
such a one attempted, not to reform society, but to induce 

1 See Rom. 10: 1—11:32. 



286 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

individuals to accept Jesus as the Christ and join the church. 
The entire process, therefore, was neither of man's choosing 
nor centrifugal. A man might be as passionately devoted 
to the preaching of the gospel as Paul, and yet be of almost 
no significance as an influence upon the society of the empire 
at large; while, on the other hand, the church had been 
redeemed from a present evil age, and it was to have as little 
as possible to do with that age. 

The second, and far more important, ground for the 
indifference of apostolic Christianity to the establishment of 
a Christian civilization that would replace the heathen, lay 
in its conception of an eschatological kingdom. It believed 
implicitly and explicitly that civilization, as it existed in the 
empire, had not long to survive. Across the entire horizon 
of the future the early Christians saw the messianic judg- 
ment and the beginning of a new age in which men were to 
live only in the bodies of the resurrection. So far from 
planning for posterity, they could hardly believe that there 
was to be any posterity. The Lord was to return shortly,^ 
even during the lifetime of their own generation;^ believers 
if dead were to be raised, if alive were to be changed in the 
twinkling of an eye ; the judgment was to be set, the king- 
dom established, the wicked destroyed. The time was short, 
and ever growing shorter.^ Maran atha. The Lord comes. 
The end of all things was at hand.* The judge stood before 
the doors.^ Why, then, plan social revolutions, or even 
social ameliorations? The Christian's wrestling was not 
with flesh and blood, but with rank upon rank of angels, 
the powers of the air.^ It was better to endure patiently 
the days of waiting, for in the Day that was to come all 
earthly differences would be effaced. 

iRom. 13:11, 12; 16:20; 1 Cor. 7:29: Phil. 4:5. 

21Thes. 4:15-17; 5:1, 23, 24; 2 Thess. 1:7; Rom. 13:11, 12; 1 Cor. 1:7,8; 7:29; 
11:26; 15:51, 52. 

3 Rom. 13 : 11, 12 ; 1 Cor. 16 : 22 ; Phil. 4:5; Isa. 5 : 8 Heb. 10 : 25, 37. 
*1 Peter 4: 7. 5 James 5: 9. CEph. 6:12. 



Messianic Fraternity in an Evil Age 287 

The perception of the hopelessness of attempting to con- 
vert all individuals before this awful day of Jehovah awoke 
not only thankfulness that there were those who were already 
saved as brands from the burning, but profound sorrow, 
amounting in some cases to pessimism. "All that is in the 
world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the 
vainglory of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, 
and the world passeth away and the lust thereof,"^ says 
1 John, and a little later,^ "we know that the whole world 
lieth in the evil one." The wild joy over the destruction of 
sinners that runs through the Apocalypse of John is but the 
natural outcome of the recognition of an inherent hostility 
between the new groups of God's elect and the wicked, per- 
secuting empire in the midst of which they lived. And 
long after, when the delay of the coming of Jesus was 
beginning to cause doubt and scorn, the unknown person 
who wrote in the name of Peter ^ could hold to the Enochian 
belief that the present heavens and earth had survived the 
Noachian flood, stored with fire reserved against the day of 
judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 

But again the writers of the apostolic age were unable to 
bring their hopes born of their new life quite into subjection 
to this narrowing eschatology. At least Paul could not. 
The salvation to which his passionate heart looked was some- 
thing too great to be limited to the few men of lowly calling 
he found at Corinth and the other cities he had evangelized. 
The rulers of this age might pass away unsaved, but in 
moments when his heart rather than his logic spoke, he could 
see all creation groaning and travailing together in pain, 
waiting for the adoption — the resurrection of the believer;* 
he could see all creation brought into subjection to Jesus 
Christ, every knee bowing to his great name.^ Just how he 

ilJohnl:17. 2iJohn5:19. 3 2 Peter 3: 7. 

* Eom. 8 : 19-22. 5 Phil. 2 : 10. 



288 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

would co-ordinate this thought with his general teachings it 
is impossible at this distance to say. Perhaps, as he was a 
very great man, he would not try to co-ordinate them. At any 
rate, there they are a tribute not only to a masterly imagina- 
tion, but to the power of the new life the social capacities 
of which, because of his own historical limitations, he could 
not fully appreciate. Yet, with him as with Jesus, Christian 
life must be social in order to be true to itself. Strip from 
his teaching its enswathing eschatology, and we have the 
non-messianic elements in the teaching of Jesus. God and 
men had found each other. The divine life complemented 
the human. Each man was made alive and was to be kept 
alive by the Spirit of God. This body of Christ, what is 
it, if one ceases to believe it but a temporary thing, but the 
beginning of a redeemed humanity ? And this new life 
that is drawn from the Spirit, what is it but the eternal life 
of which Jesus speaks, which will refuse to look merely to 
the rescue of individuals from an evil age, and as soon as it 
discovers that its hope for the immediate return of the Christ 
is a disappointment will go out to the rescue of institutions 
and the conquest of the empire itself ? 

Christian civilization was the inevitable result of the new 
life taught by Jesus, experienced by individual Christians, 
organized by the Christian communities, and interpreted by 
the apostles in the vocabulary and concepts of Pharisaism. 
The interpretation was transitory; the divinely imparted 
life, eternal. He who would see the heart of apostolic 
Christianity must find it in this work of the Spirit in the 
lives of those who believed Jesus to be the Christ and 
accepted his teachings as the everlasting principles of ethical 
and religious living. With the apostles, as with their 
Master, the essentials of Christianity lie in personality, and 
not in formula ; in the Spirit and not in the letter. 



CHAPTER III 
THE FAMILY AND THE AGE 

This conception of the church as a fraternity within the 
Roman empire makes it easy to appreciate the effect of the 
messianic hope upon the Christian conceptions of life. The 
apostles were not social philosophers, but they did set forth 
what the members of the church should consider proper 
customs for themselves. Thus in each department of social 
life their teaching is affected both by practical considerations 
resulting from the actual environment of the Christian, and 
also by the regulative conceptions of their eschatology. 
Eternal life was being lived, but it was not to be without 
its ethical formulas. And these formulas were in part 
derived from the conventionalities of the civilization in 
which the messianic fraternities found themselves. 



The family did not originate with Christianity. So far 
as we know, apostolic Christianity did not attempt any 
change in its form or ceremonies in the different countries 
into which it spread. Yet this by no means is to be inter- 
preted as arguing that Paul approved of the Graeco-Roman 
moralists in matters relating to the sexes. On the contrary, 
it is patent that he found in heathen society a distinct 
danger to the pure life which the Christian should attempt 
to live. In fact, the greatest danger that threatened the new 
communities lay in the social ideals and customs that pre- 
vailed throughout the Grseco-Roman world. 

Thanks to the over-zealous efforts of certain apologetes, 
we have grown so accustomed to the portrayals of the 
depravity of the heathen society of the first century that it 

289 



290 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

is difficult to realize that an empire that had yet hundreds 
of years to live, and was not to reach its greatest prosperity 
for a century, was neither decrepit nor rotten. Especially 
hard is it to realize the simple distinction between the 
capital and the provinces, and to believe that throughout 
the provinces there was a sturdy, self-respecting middle class 
which, however its members may have enjoyed occasional 
gladiatorial sports, was yet maintaining a conventional 
domestic morality by no means greatly inferior to that of 
any modern nation. Just as the letters of Pliny tell of 
beautiful home life among the official class in the capital, 
the gravestones are noble defenders of bourgeois morals. 
Men were not all like the heroes of Petronious and Apuleius, 
and women were not all like that notorious matron who 
counted years by her husbands rather than by the consuls. 
Throughout the empire there was developing a new concep- 
tion of the rights of married women. Gradually they had 
passed out from the restrictions of the old in manu marriage 
and were permitted to study, if not to practice, learned pro- 
fessions, to control their own property, and in many other 
ways to break from the restraints set by the old conceptions 
of the subjection of the wife to the husband. All this dis- 
turbed the minds of conservatives of those days, just as 
similar tendencies disturb conservatives in the present day. 
For those who were admirers of old Roman ideals, as many 
of the fashionable writers profess themselves, there was 
indeed sufficient ground for lamentation; yet, nevertheless, 
the emancipation of women advanced steadily. It even 
possibly aided the Christian conception of the ideal position 
of women as one of equality with men. But, unfortunately, 
the abolition of restraints seems to have been followed by 
no moral uplift. Alongside of this emancipation of women 
of the wealthier classes there persisted the old ideas of the 
veniality of sexual impurity on the part of men, as well as a 



The Family and the Age 291 

growing tendency to divorce. The upper classes were not 
marrying, and the number of children in case of marriage 
was growing less, notwithstanding the government's effort 
to check the evil by the establishment of privileges for those 
who had three children. What was worse, there was spring- 
ing up a sort of legalized concubinage that was neither 
prostitution nor marriage. 

In addition to these tendencies in the Grseco-Roman 
family, there was also the recognition of prostitution as an 
element in the social life of all cities. It is impossible to go 
into this matter in detail, but the readers of the polite litera- 
ture of the empire know only too well how heathen society 
regarded the matter. If few Roman philosophers would 
take the position of Cato, they seldom censured the practices 
he advised. The other and nameless form of licentiousness, 
which played such havoc in the moral system even of a 
Socrates, was not only prevalent, but actually a matter of 
academic debate. Plutarch has a lengthy dialogue as to 
the relative merits of the love of boys and the love of 
women.^ Such a fact as this makes very evident the public 
opinion in the midst of which the first gentile churches 
sprang up. Practices like these, abhorrent though they 
were to Jewish and Christian morality, were sharply dis- 
tinguished by the ethical writers of the day from lust and 
ignoble passion of all sorts. No one would accuse Plutarch, 
for instance, of favoring orgies or debauchery. Temperance, 
or self-control, was the greatest of personal virtues both for 
him and for all men of his type. But chastity on the part 
of men was a matter of preference — a practice of a semi- 
ascetic morality. Confusing as are the implications of such 
a statement, the historical student must admit that the 
great and good men of the Greek and Roman type distin- 
guished marital faithlessness from prostitution, and regarded 

I Morals (Eng. trans.), "On Love." 



292 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

what today would be considered licentiousness as morally 
neutral. That such a conception ever was outgrown must 
be laid largely to the credit of the Christian teaching we 
are considering. Chastity of both men and women, not 
merely the maintenance of the married vow, was an ideal of 
all Christian teachers. The triumph of this ideal is a 
tribute to the wisdom of those called to confront a problem 
which at the outset must have appeared all but insoluble. 

A second fact that gave the early Christians difficulty as 
regards marriage was the Christian teaching itself. Jesus 
himself had taught that in the approaching kingdom men 
were neither to marry nor to give in marriage, but were to 
be like the angels.^ Indeed, he had even said that unless a 
man hated his father and mother he could not be his 
disciple.^ Paul, with his persistent emphasis upon the 
"flesh" as the point of attack of sin, must have deepened 
the uncertainty of his converts as to the rightfulness of 
maintaining, much more entering upon, matrimony. The 
matter became so vital that the Corinthian church wrote to 
the apostle for light. ^ Should Christians marry, and, if 
married, should they live together as husband and wife ? If 
one of the married pair were not a Christian, should the 
marriage be broken? 

These were the questions forced upon the church by both 
its social environment and its own teachings. The answer 
that Paul makes to them is clearly determined by its general 
conception of the relation of the Christian to the world and 
the kingdom, and by his belief in the shortness of the time 
to elapse before Christ returned. It will be found in extenso 
in 1 Cor., chap. 7. His positions may thus be stated: (a) 

1 Mark 12 : 24. " The sons of God, children of the resurrection," Luke 20: 36. 

2 Luke 14: 26. 

3 The suggestion of Ramsay, Historical Commentary on Corinthians, in loco, 
that the Corinthians were considering universal marriage as a panacea for the 
prevalent morality, can hardly be considered seriously. See Massie, Journal of 
Theological Studies, July, 1901, pp. 527, 528. 



The Family and the Age 293 

marriage is a lawful thing for a Christian; (b) it is to be 
justified wholly from the side of physical appetite, as a sort 
of prophylactic against licentiousness;^ (c) for those who are 
able to withstand appetite, celibacy is preferable, since, if 
married, they will be likely to be more devoted to their hus- 
bands or wives than to the Lord; (d) the general position 
governing his teaching, he frankly says,^ was not obtained 
from any teaching of Jesus, but is given as his own opinion 
{yvcofjurj), as one who had received mercy from the Lord to be 
trustworthy. How far he was governed in this teaching by 
his eschatology is evident.^ "By reason of the present dis- 
tress [i. e., in the storm and stress period before the reappear- 
ance of the Christ] it is good for a man to be as he is.* Art 
thou loosed from a wife ? seek not a wife. But and if thou 
marry, thou hast not sinned." Thus, again, it appears that 
Paul does not regard it as any part of his work as an apostle 
to develop a philosophy of marriage, or, in fact, any social 
program, for persons who are so soon to be living in condi- 
tions in which only the spiritual elements of life are to sur- 
vive. Marriage he regards as a temporary institution, to 
pass away with the age.^ 

Yet it would be a serious injustice to the apostolic thought 
to leave the matter here. One must consider, also, the closely 

1 Yet even in marriage the husband and wife are to live apart occasionally for 
religious growth, 1 Cor. 7 : 5. 

21 Cor. 7:25. 3 1 Cor. 7:26. 

* Teichmann, Die paulinische Vorstellung von Auferstehung und Gericht, p. 20, 
holds, on the basis of 4 Esdr,, 5 : 8, that Paul advises against marriage because of the 
general belief that childbirth would be especially dangerous during the period pre- 
ceding the advent of the Christ. So, too, Thackeeat, St. Paul and Contemporary 
Jewish Thought, 76. Such a view is by no means impossible, and becomes the more 
probable when one recalls that there was no persecution or other specific danger 
threatening the church at Corinth at the time Paul wrote these words. For refer- 
ence to Jewish literature see p. 166, n. 3, above. 

5 Yet it is temporary only as the age itself is temporary. The society in which 
it is abolished is not earthly, but heavenly. As an institution it is as permanent as 
the age. Of that hallucination which has often overtaken good men and induced 
them to attack marriage, as an unjustifiable conventionality to be outgrown in the 
progress of civilization, he happily has no trace. Apostolic Christianity is no cham- 
pion of free love, no matter under what euphemisms it may masquerade. 



294 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

allied theme of chastity, so unavoidably forced into notice 
by any study of the social conditions in which apostolic 
Christianity developed. As we should expect, here is no 
mere balancing of two possible goods; far less a recognition 
of the moral possibility of any such question as that debated 
by Plutarch. No moralist ever struck out more boldly at 
that laxity which, to modern eyes, is the worst feature of the 
Roman civilization. The doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which 
was the same as that of Balaam,^ leading directly to licentious- 
ness — how anxiously is it censured in the Apocalypse of John.^ 
The most superficial reader of the opening chapter of 
Romans feels the heat of Paul's hatred of heathen vice. The 
matter in his treatment becomes again one of contrast between 
adp^ and Trvevfia — of the supremacy of the spiritual life, and 
the supremacy of the moral imperative found in the nature of 
that life. Brushing aside all casuistry, he puts the case 
frankly: it is a choice between living after the flesh and 
reaping corruption, or of living after the Spirit and reaping 
eternal life.^ The fornicator cannot enter the kingdom of 
God.* Thus even here there is no appeal to law, either of 
Moses or of Jesus. The Christian must be pure because he 
is a Christian. He is to live in the flesh the sort of life that 
is to be his after the resurrection. Social ethics were never 
more directly based upon religion. No man could appeal to 
higher motives. As Marcus Aurelius might summon the 
thought of Nature to assist him in early rising, Paul made 
the Christian's union with God's spirit the basis for personal 
purity. *'As for fornication, let it not so much as be named 

iNumb. 31:16, c/. 25:1-15. 

2 Rev. 2 : 6, 15, cf. the teaching of the woman Jezebel, Eev. 2 : 20. 

3 Gal. 5:16-6:10; 1 Cor. 5:9. 

4 Eph. 5:5; cf.l Thess. 4: 4 f. Wernle, Christ und Siinde bei Paulus, pp. 129 f., 
compares the various catalogues of sins given by the apostle in Rom. 1 : 29 ; 13 : 13 ; 
1 Cor. 5:10, 11; 6:9; 2 Cor. 12:20, 21; Gal. 5:19 f.; Col. 3:5, 8; Eph. 4:31; 5:3, 5. In 
all but two reference is made to licentiousness. See also Von Dobschutz, Die ur- 
christliche Gemeinde, p. 283. 



The Family and the Age 295 

among you!^ Know ye not that your body is a temple of 
the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God? 
Glorify God therefore in your body."^ Only thus could the 
resurrection of the body and the achievement of the life of 
complete triumph over the flesh be guaranteed. Nothing gave 
him more anxiety concerning the churches in Thessalonica and 
Corinth than the danger that threatened in this regard from 
heathen society ; and the great struggle in which the apostle 
engaged with the Corinthian church seems to have had one of 
its main roots in the unwillingness of the church to discipline 
a member who had broken even the lax conventionalities of 
heathen society. And it may well be noticed that the apostle 
demands this chastity of men quite as much as of women. 
Possibly one might say he was even more insistent upon it 
because of the attitude of the Grseco-Roman mind to which 
reference has already been made. 

Thus the family in the apostolic teachings appears a sec- 
ondary good. On the whole it was wise, Paul thought, not 
to establish one for oneself. It is true, to be able to live 
unmarried was evidence of a special divine charism,^ but he 
himself had a right to be married as well as Peter, yet pre- 
ferred celibacy (or shall we say widowerhood ?) and could 
wish that all men were of the same mind.* And this applied 
to women quite as truly as to men.^ Similarly, the Seer of 
Patmos saw the 144,000 who had not defiled themselves 
with women standing with the Lamb, the first fruits unto 
God and the Lamb.® It is not difficult to see how such a 
disparagement of marriage would lead to the aceticism of 
the next century after the apostles. 

iEph.5:3. So, too, Heb. 13:4. 21 Cor. 6:19, 20. 

31 Cor. 7:7. Jacoby, NeutestamentUche Ethik, p. 34, note, refuses to classify the 
Xapta-fjia of this text with x^-P'-'^t^'^'^'^ in general. His position seems hardly justifiable 
in view of the general position of Paul concerningthe "gifts." It would seem as if he 
meant by them special and characteristic powers possessed by various believers, which 
in accordance with his usual tendency he explained as resulting from the working of 
the Holy Spirit. 

*lCor. 9:5f. 5 1 Cor. 7 : 39, 40. 6Rev. 14:4. 



296 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

II 

If now we pass from the apostles' treatment of the relation 
of the sexes to that accorded the family as an institution, we 
discover at once that they are true children of this age. 
Paul's conception of marriage as a purely physical matter, 
advisable as a means of preventing irregular alliances, 
could hardly fail to be accompanied by frank and unques- 
tioning statements concerning the inferiority of woman in 
the family. It is true that "in Christ" there was to be no 
distinction, but not so in the church. There the women 
were to be silent.^ They were to remember that the woman 
was made from man, and not man from the woman ;^ that 
veils were necessary still on account of the angels.^ The 
husband was the head of the wife* and, supposedly at least, 
capable of giving her all such instruction as was needed by 
the weaker vessel.^ The wife, finally, was to be subject to 
her husband.^ And all the apostolic teaching is to the same 
effect.' 

In Paul's eyes, also, the unmarried woman was subject to 
her father. He could prevent her marriage, and as a lesser 
good he could permit it. After becoming a widow, however, 
the same woman was, in accordance with the spirit of the 
age, given new rights. She could marry whom she chose, 
only iv Kvpio), i, e., probably, within the circle of believers.^ 
Later advice given in his name makes remarriage obligatory 
on young widows.^ 

Yet though he might thus treat the family as a secondary 
good, and though he might thus insist upon Christians con- 
forming to the social conventions of their day, Paul's teaching 
concerning divorce is that of Jesus himself. The question 

1 1 Cor. 14 : 34, 36. 2 1 Cor. 11 : 12. 

31 Cor. 11 :10. The meaning of this enigmatic saying is probably to be found in 
Gen. 6:2-4 and the evil which sprang from the union with angels mentioned there. 
* 1 Cor. 11 : 1-16 ; Eph. 5 : 23. 5 1 Cor. 14 : 35. 

6 Eph. 5 : 22 ; Col. 3 : 18 ; cf. 1 Cor . 7 : 39. ^ 1 Pet. 3:1,7. 

81 Cor. 7:36-40; 9:5; 2 Cor. 6:14. n Tim. 5:14. 



The Family and the Age 297 

as to the separation of married persons from unbelieving 
partners was a very natural one for Christians of the type of 
those in Corinth, and the matter was treated by Paul 
explicitly. Again he works from a general principle that is 
far more important than its particular application. Chris- 
tians thus married are certainly to maintain the home for 
the benefit of each other and their children ; for the unbeliev- 
ing husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving 
wife is sanctified in the brother; else were their children 
unclean.^ Whatever else this last clause may mean, it cer- 
tainly exhibits strikingly Paul's regard for the unity of the 
home, and especially for the children.^ 

Brought face to face with an actual separation of husband 
and wife, Paul speaks in the name of Jesus: *'the wife shall 
not depart from her husband, but and if she depart, let her 
remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband ; and 
let the husband leave not his wife."^ Here is the one clear 
instance in which the apostles quote Jesus as an authority 
in ethical matters, and it is worth attention that it is at the 
one point at which the social content of Christianity cannot 
change except for the worse. If there is anything in all 
the specific social teaching of Paul that may be said to have 
transcended the historical situation in which it was uttered, 
it was this concerning the family: the union of a man and 
woman in marriage is a primal fact of humanity; it is not a 
matter of contract, it is an actual status. Separation may 
be permitted, but not remarriage to other persons. Divorce 
is neither instituted nor permitted by New Testament ethics.* 

11 Cor. 7:14. 

2 On this latter point see also the position taken as to the saving quality of 
child-bearing; 1 Tim. 2:15; cf. 5:14. 

3 1 Cor. 7 : 10, 11 ; cf. Mk. 10 : 12. 

* It is worth noticing that this use of the saying of Jesus by Paul furnishes a 
critical control of the saying itself. In Matt. 5 : 32 ; 19 : 9 the exception clause Trape/crbs 
A670U TTopveias or /U.TJ €7rl iropveia is found, but not in Mark 10:11 or Luke 16:18. On 
general critical principles, therefore, the clause would likely be dropped, but the 
decision is strengthened by the absence of any such exception in the teaching of 
Paul. Cf. Jacoby, NeutestamentUche Ethik, p. 356. To the contrary (mistakenly), 
Mathews, Social Teaching of Jesus, p. 87, 



298 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

There remains the matter of apostolic directions for the 
control of the inner relations of the Christian family. These 
are given so repeatedly as to indicate that the matter was 
regarded as of first importance. They are not in accord 
with modern ideas in some points, but are clearly such as 
would have made the Christian family ideal in the society 
of the first century. In general they are the outcome of 
the positions already described. Wives were to be in sub- 
jection to their husbands;^ children were to obey their 
parents ; fathers were not to provoke their children to wrath, 
but to nurture them in the chastening and admonition of 
the Lord.^ It is not difficult to see in these directions a 
modification, but not a destruction, of the parental authority 
so universally recognized in both Jewish and Roman civiliza- 
tion. 

To make these essentially local and historical applications 
of Christianity universal and authoritative in matters of the 
family is to check the growth of the Christian spirit in 
social affairs at the limit reached by these civilizations. 
Such a check, however, so clearly possible only as long as 
one lived under the control of an eschatological conception 
soon to be made untenable by the failure of the Christ to 
return to usher in the expected messianic age, Christian 
history shows was short-lived. In the family, as in all 
things, it was the ideal element of Paulinism, not its specific 
application, that proved permanent. And in these matters, 
at least, most Christians are agreed. He would be a rare 
man who would today attempt to make the Pauline teaching 
as to Corinthian women operative in western Christendom. 

But to understand Paul completely one must also consider 
his attitude toward the family as a social unit, wholly apart 
from its basis as a union of persons of opposite sexes. It 
is here that the apostle comes nearest to the thought of Jesus. 

lEph. 5:22 f.; 1 Pet. 3:1. 2Eph. 6:lf.; Col. 3:18-25- 



The Family and the Age 299 

It will be recalled that with the Master the family became 
the formal concept of the kingdom. God was Father, dis- 
ciples sons and therefore brothers, and all who entered the 
kingdom were to become like little children. Paul, in his 
less practical moments, when he is dealing with ideals and 
not with questions of church discipline, has similar expres- 
sions. God is a loving Father^ quite as much as a dread 
sovereign,^ and most beautiful of all the Pauline expressions 
is that in the Ephesian letter, "I bow my knees unto the 
Father from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth 
is named."' Other figures fall hardly below this. The 
church is sometimes conceived of as the bride of Christ; 
sometimes as a virgin to be kept spotless till the coming of 
her lord. The man who could so use a social institution can 
hardly be said to have disparaged it, however much he may 
have regarded it as a secondary good.* 

Ill 

Thus if one were to summarize the apostles' teaching as 
to the family, it would be something like this: Except in 
the case of divorce, and then under the direct influence of 
Jesus, they did not attempt to introduce any new conception 
of the family. They rather treated the Jewish and the 
heathen marriage from the Christian point of view, as an 
institution to be preserved. As a result they held up ideals 
for families in the Grseco- Roman life of the first century. 
Only in so far as these ideals involve universal principles 
are they of importance to today's life. The new Christian 
life, possessed as it is by the very genius of corporate 
expression, has worked out, within the limits set by these 
general principles, such particular social institutions as it has 
judged necessary and human imperfections have permitted. 

Thus again the application of historical criteria enables 

1 Rom. 8:14-17. 2C/. Eph. 4:6. 3 Eph. 3:14, 15. 

* As a matter of curiosity, it might be added that there is no evidence that the 
Christian pastors performed wedding ceremonies. 



300 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

us to distinguish the essential and the pedagogic elements 
of the apostle's thought. Long hair and veils, silence in 
religious meetings, subjection to their husbands — these are 
but elements in the apostle's adjustment of the external life 
to a Grgeco-Roman civilization. So, too, his treatment of 
marriage as a purely animal survival. Under the domina- 
tion of a formal and ethnic thought, he undertook to prepare 
men for another world. In his estimation the present age 
was hopelessly evil, its surviving animalism and such of its 
members as did not live according to the spirit, doomed to 
certain destruction. From this point of view, it was idle to 
attempt reform or to assist social evolution. Christians, 
though not to abandon this world, were to live as citizens of 
another. Thus the family was a matter of but secondary 
importance, and women, though ideally equal with men, were 
in point of fact treated as inferior. 

In so far apostolic Christianity was temporal. But in 
this social teaching Paul was giving but an interpretation of 
something that he knew and preached as neither Jewish nor 
temporal; and that something was life, born of an actual 
faith in G-od. This life it was that formed the basis of his 
moral teachings, and which, he urged, should be allowed to 
express itself in acts of love to men. Those who held God 
as Father would treat men and women as equal members of 
the new fraternity. And it was this essential Christianity 
that outgrew the specific social directions of the apostle. In 
Paul's noble conception of the religious worth and respon- 
sibilities of a man's body with all its passions, in his insist- 
ence upon love between man and wife, in his refusal to regard 
marriage as a mere contract capable of dissolution, in his 
recognition of the rights of children — in a word, in his 
recognition of the domestic implications of the new moral 
and religious life, Paul was opening up the permanent force 
and ideals of subsequent social evolution. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BEARING OF ETERNAL 

LIFE 

The years in which Christianity first began its history 
were years of prodigious economic and political change. 
The growth of the Roman republic had of necessity broken 
down and established trade routes quite as truly as it had 
recombined kingdoms into the first empire. Commercial 
intercourse between Asia and Africa was supplemented by 
the enormous traffic between cities like Alexandria, Antioch, 
Tarsus, Ephesus, Corinth, Marseilles, and Rome. Industries 
were developed to the very limits allowed by slavery. 
Enormous banking houses sprang up all over the empire ; 
Judea itself, after having for centuries shared but little in 
the economic life of its neighbors, then sought its place in 
the world-commerce. At the same time there was an extra- 
ordinary redistribution of wealth. The enormous booty of 
the eastern wars at first had fallen into the hands of a few 
wealthy Romans. The standard of living set by them had 
controlled the habits of the wealthy classes throughout the 
provinces, and in consequence there, as in the capital itself, 
ruinous prodigality was soon epidemic. Uninvested wealth 
is pretty certain to find its way into the hands of middlemen, 
and the Roman empire offered no exception to the rule. 
Shopkeepers grew into capitalists; slaves into freedmen; 
freedmen into millionaires. The entire age grew commer- 
cial. 

At the same time it grew imperial. The multitude of 
small kingdoms and city-states that had composed the an- 
cient world had become things of the past, and in their 
stead there had arisen the ever-developing empire. For the 

301 



302 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

first time in human history the civilized world was at peace 
with itself, and united against the barbarians of the forests 
of Europe, the steppes of Asia, and the plains of Arabia and 
Africa. It was impossible for the imagination of any 
thoughtful man to rest unstirred. So it was that there 
seems to have arisen throughout the empire bands of men 
who sought either to carry the political transformation still 
farther, or to check the progress of a movement toward the 
complete centralization of power in an irresponsible monarch. 
So much, at least, looks out upon us through the stern regu- 
lations of the age against all sorts of sodalities. "Societies 
of this sort," wrote Trajan to the younger Pliny who had 
recommended forming a fire company in Nicomedia,^ "have 
greatly disturbed the peace of the province. Whatever name 
we give them, and for whatever purposes they may be 
founded, they will not fail to form themselves into factious 
assemblies, however short their meetings may be." The 
same danger Trajan discovered in large meetings called to 
receive contributions of money. ^ Throughout the entire 
legislative and imperial rescripts a similar fear of political 
disturbance is evident. To speak against Csesar was the 
worst of crimes. 

Into this commercial empire Christianity came, with a 
message that from the point of view of the empire itself 
must have been suspicious. It taught another king, Jesus,^ 
and it sought to make its followers live as if citizens of 
another kingdom. As long as such teachings were seen 
through the medium of a highly protected Judaism, they 
might very well pass among the Romans as a part of the 
impossible religion of the Jews; but when once Christians 
left the synagogues and made devotion to their king and 
kingdom the supreme test of loyalty to their own fraternities, it 
is clear that Roman officialism could not fail to be alarmed. 

1 Pliny, Letters, bk. x, 43 2 ibid., bk. x, 94 3 Acts 17 : 7. 



Economic Beaking of Eternal Life 303 

To adjust the new life of the church to an aggressive com- 
mercialism, and at the same time to preserve it from being 
misconceived as a political movement, were problems requir- 
ing no small sagacity. 

Yet, after all, from the point of view occupied by Paul, 
its solution was not difficult. The new value given life by 
eschatological messianism, the spirit of laissez-faire in politics 
which obtained in his pharisaic training, suggested at once 
the conduct to be advised. How opposed to anything savor- 
ing of revolution this conduct should be has already appeared. 
We have now to examine the positive teachings of the apostles 
concerning the ethical principles obtaining in economic and 
political matters. 



The teaching of Jesus upon wealth was set forth in 
language which might be easily misunderstood to indicate 
hostility to wealth as such. He realized the moral difficul- 
ties which lie in the possession of property, and, above all, 
the constant temptation of the rich man to grow independent 
and superior to his fellows. It was because of this that he 
so insisted upon the fraternal use of property. Wealth was 
a small good for a man face to face with eternity. It is 
true that his teaching is not strictly economic. Doubtless 
because of the circumstances of the time in which he lived, 
beyond saying that one cannot serve both it and God, and 
that one is to seek first God's kingdom and his righteous- 
ness, he has left no utterance concerning the matter of the 
production or, strictly speaking, the distribution of wealth. 
He was rather concerned with its consumption. But even 
here his words are not those of the economist, but of the 
moralist. Indeed, he has left no economic program. In 
the case of wealth, as in the case of all human matters, he is 
concerned with moral relations, and it is from this point of 



304 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

view that his words have permanent value. With Jesus 
wealth is a good, but a secondary good. By being used in 
the spirit of love, and for the purpose of building up a fra- 
ternal humanity, it gains its only worth. ^ And this means 
that it should be given freely and as one is confronted with 
others' needs.^ In fact, so strong are his expressions con- 
cerning the duty of charity that, were it not for the correct- 
ive of his other and more general teachings concerning 
love, one might be justified in adopting the interpretation 
of his words so often championed, that Jesus taught that all 
wealth should be given away. Interpreted in their genetic 
relations with the fundamental principles of his teaching, 
however, these injunctions to charity appear in their true 
light. They are the one application of such principles to 
the historical conditions in which Jesus found himself. 

And as such charity reappeared in the apostolic frater- 
nity. 

For one cannot be far from the truth in holding that it 
was the recollection of their manner of life with Jesus a few 
months previous that led the apostles in the early days of 
the Jerusalem church to favor the continuance of an arrange- 
ment in which no limits were set upon the devotion of wealth 
to the needs of the community. And thence resulted the 
outgush of Christian love which led to the sale of land and 
other property, and the devotion of the proceeds to the 
maintenance of a common fund which was devoted to sup- 
plying the needs of poor Christians.^ 

Many* have seen in this spontaneous /cotvcovia, in which, 

iLukel6:lfe. 

2 For instance, Luke 6:30; 12:33; Mark 10:21. In general see Mathews, Social 
Teaching of Jesus, chap. 6; Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, chap. 4; 
RoGGE, Der irdische Besitz im Neuen Testament; Cone, Bich and Poor in the New 
Testament, chaps. 1-5 ; Heuvek, Jesus'' Teaching concerning Wealth. 

3 There is no need of supposing that the entire membership of the church sat 
down to a common meal. The numbers, as well as Acts 2 : 46, preclude this. 

4 For instance, Nitti, Catholic Socialism, p. 62. A number of quotations are 
given in Peabody, op. cit., p. 26, note. 



Economic Bearing of Eternal Life 305 

as one of the two accounts of Acts says, no one thought of 
his own property as his own/ a form of communism. It is 
very difficult for one who would use words accurately to 
assent to such an opinion. Communism consists in some- 
thing more than self-sacrificing charity. If words mean 
anything, to give one's coat to a tramp is not to constitute 
oneself a disciple of Fourier. No more were the Christians 
at Jerusalem communists because they ministered to their 
poor. There is not the slightest indication that they ever 
united in a common productive effort, ever uttered a word 
against the institution of private property, or gave their 
assent to any peculiar theory of the distribution of wealth. 
The situation was much simpler. These Christian messian- 
ists expected that their Lord was soon to come to establish 
his heavenly kingdom. This faith constituted a bond of 
union both with Jesus and with each other. They were 
brethren. Some of their number were in need of assistance. 
It was but an expression of the fraternal love which charac- 
terized the new life when those who had property should 
minister to their less fortunate brothers. The time in which 
property would be of use was rapidly shortening, and for 
that reason, if for no other, wealth might well be put to its 
best use. Such an explanation so satisfies all the conditions 
that it seems almost supererogation to call attention to the 
fact that the mother of Mark seems to have owned her 
house,^ and that in the story of Ananias and Sapphira, what- 
ever may be its historical value, there is no evidence that its 
writer supposed that in the Christian church there was ever 
any compulsory charity.^ The two wretches die as liars, not 
as breakers of a communistic compact. 

But even such consistent, if indeed, under the belief of 
his speedy return, too literal, following of the teaching of 

1 Acts 4 : 32 ; cf. 3 : 44, 45. In the Didache, 4 : 8, and in the Epistle of Barnabas^ 
19:8, this statement becomes a command. 

2 Acts 12:12. 3 Acts 5:1-11. 



306 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

Jesus was but short-lived in the church. His words were 
interpreted to refer to charity rather than to general eco- 
nomic life, and charity became throughout the different 
Christian communities what it has since become — a giving 
of a certain portion of one's income to the poor, chiefly 
those, doubtless, at Jerusalem. Wherever one can trace 
Paul there one can also discover his indefatigable effort to 
raise money for poor Christians.^ However much this effort 
may have depended upon some politic motive, like main- 
taining the good- will of otherwise proselyting Jewish Chris- 
tians,^ there can be no question as to the importance he 
accords charity as a Christian virtue. Even the common 
meals furnished the poor of the Jerusalem church were per- 
petuated in the meals of the Grseco-Eoman churches like 
Corinth.^ It is true that this meal soon became symbolical* 
rather than eleemosynary, the expression of a fraternal 
unity rather than of charity; but even thus its origin does 
not seem to have been quite forgotten, for alongside of the 
memorial supper there seems also to have been a more sub- 
stantial meal. In other ways, also, the teachings of Jesus 
upon charity seem to have received especial attention. Paul 
admonishes the elders of Ephesus not to forget their Lord's 
word, "It is more blessed to give than to receive^ and the 
poor-fund raised in his churches seems to have been suffi- 
ciently large to warrant a system of treasurers like Tychicus 
and Trophimus.® 

Yet there is no suggestion that Paul thought it necessary 

ilThess. 4:11; Rom. 15:26-33; lCor.l6:l-4; 2 Cor. 1:8 £E.; 8:4; 9:lff.; Gal.2:10. 

2C/.lCor. 16:1, 3; 2 Cor. 9:1. 31 Cor. 10:16; 11:24. 

4 The influence of the Greek mysteries may here be traced, but it is easy to give 
undue importance to this element in the universalizing of early Christianity. Cf. 
Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, chap. 10; 
Cheetam, Mysteries, Pagan and Christian; Weenle, Beginnings of Christianity, 
Vol. II, pp. 123 f . 

SActs 20:34,35. 

6 Acts 20:4, 5; cf. Acts 24:17; Rom. 15:25, 26; Gal. 2:10. See Rendall, Exposi- 
tor, 1893, p. 321. The technical word for this contribution was 5i.aKovia. 



Economic Bearing of Eternal Life 307 

for all his converts to beggar themselves in order to assist 
others from beggary. "Let thine alms sweat within thy 
hands until thou knowest to whom thou art giving it," says 
the Didache,^ and Paul was quite as much opposed to indis- 
criminate charity. He insisted that the Christian should 
keep within the ranks of the wealth-producers. "We hear," 
he wrote the Thessalonians, "of some that walk among you 
disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies. Now 
them that are such we command and exhort in the Lord 
Jesus that with quietness they work and eat their own 
bread." "If any will not work, neither let him eat,"^ he 
also commanded the Thessalonians, as if in the very spirit 
of modern philanthropy. In several of his letters^ he recalls 
to the mind of his converts his own habit of life, how he 
worked daily in order that he might not become a burden to 
any, and that, too, while he distinctly recognizes his right 
along with other religious teachers to be supported by the 
community to which he ministered in spiritual things.* 
Perhaps at this point we find Paul in his most interesting 
position. The custom of the rabbis, and far more of the 
philosophers, favored the giving of presents to teachers. 
Thus, as a teacher, to say nothing of his being an apostle, 
he might have claimed the privilege of being supported by 
his disciples. This, as has already been said, he declined to 
do, but his declination was made in such form as really to 
strengthen the right of other teachers to be paid. Whether 
or not such persons had abandoned their ordinary vocations 
we cannot surely say, but probably they had. Only on this 
supposition can we account for Paul's anxiety that those who 
were over his converts in the Lord and who ministered to 
them in spiritual things should be cared for in material 

11:6. 22Thess. 3:10. 

31Thess.2:9; 2 Thess. 3 : 7, 8 ; lCor.9:l-18; 2Cor.ll:7; 12:13 
4 1 Thess. 5 : 12, 13 ; 2 Thess. 3 : 9 ; 1 Cor. 9 : 1-14. 



308 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

things. The very Scriptures taught the lesson, he insisted, 
when they taught that a man was not to muzzle the ox that 
trod out his grain.* 

This insistence upon charity and self-support, as well as 
upon the payment of teachers, by others as well as PauP 
argues strongly for the presence in the early churches of 
others than those who were poor or essentially proletarian. 
And this conclusion is corroborated by many hints in the 
apostolic and subsequent literature, not to mention the 
archaeological testimony of the second and third centuries. 
Poor there were, but also those who were well to do ; pos- 
sibly, since there seems to have been a city treasurer, even a 
few rich. 

To appreciate, however, the general social status of the 
churches outside of Judea, at least, one must think of com- 
munities composed of small shopkeepers, artisans, slaves, all 
being kept by the influence of their leaders steadily at their 
daily toil, doing heartily whatever they undertook, as unto 
the Lord, and all contributing to some fund which was 
applied to the needs of the other "saints." It is certainly a 
charming picture of simplicity and generosity — the farthest 
possible removed, on the one side, from any communistic 
propaganda, and, on the other, from mere commercialism. 

But the leaders of the early church, if devoted to sobriety, 
industry, and charity, were none the less suspicious of the 
rich. In Paul's later letters he repeatedly warns his con- 
verts against covetousness, likening it to idolatry,^ and 
rigorously excluding the covetous, with fornicators and 
thieves and drunkards, from the heavenly kingdom.* And 
it is worth noticing that this suspicion of the rich did not 
pass away. The epistle to Timothy declares^ that the love 
of money is the root of all evils, and the author of He- 

11 Cor. 5:9. 2Heb. 13:17. 3 Col. 3:5. 

4 1Cor. 5:10, 11: 6: 11 ; Eph. 5: 5. 5 1 Tim. 6:10. 



Economic Bearing of Eternal Life 309 

brews ^ bids Christians to be free froni the love of money. 
Far more severe is the author of the epistle of James, 
which, whether it represents pre-Pauline Christianity or not, 
certainly represents the un-Panline point of view. In all 
folk-literature there is no sterner denunciation of wealth 
or of that obsequiousness which even in the brotherhood 
of Christ gives special honors to the well-dressed and 
wealthy man. "Go to now, ye rich, weep and wail for your 
miseries that are coming upon you. Ye have laid up your 
treasure in the last days. Behold the hire of the laborers 
who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by 
fraud crieth out."^ In these stern words we see, however, 
not merely a hostility to wealth as such, but to the un- 
righteous and oppressing rich; and it is noticeable that 
even here there is no word of revolution, but a trust in the 
retribution to come in the day of judgment. 

Despite the progress of Christianity among the wealthier 
classes, confidence in the poor man as over against the 
rich man, and the desire that all men should give to 
charity, may be said to characterize the first century of 
the life of the church. Once we even seem to catch some 
echo of the old communal charity of the ancient church, 
when in the Two Ways we read:^ "Thou shalt communicate 
in all things with thy neighbor; thou shalt not call things 
thine own: for if ye be partakers in common of things 
that are incorruptible, how much more should ye be of 
those things that are corruptible;" but the context makes 
it likely that the words urge only charity. 

The church as a whole seems never to have committed 
itself to other than the Pauline view of industry, private 
property, and charity in proportion to God's prospering. 
By the time we reach the second century we find the church 

1 Heb. 13 : 5. A reason for the minimizing of economic ambitions is almost a 
paraphrase of Matt. 6 : 31-34. 

2 Jas. 5:4. 3 Epistle of Barnabas, 19. 



310 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

fathers discussing the paradoxical teachings of Jesus with 
much the spirit, and oftentimes with the same casuistry, as 
the writers of today, while a little later Chrysostom urges an 
academic communism on the ground that all money put into 
the common fund would be divinely increased! 

If now we seek for the motives that induced the apostles 
thus to inveigh against wealth while urging industry and 
charity, they will all be found either within the traditions of 
those who had lived with Jesus, or else within the general 
messianic expectations of the early church. It is hardly 
possible to suppose that the churches which preserved the 
records of Jesus' teaching that go to make up our gospels 
should have been utterly indifferent to the repeated injunc- 
tion of Jesus to make wealth a secondary good and to 
practice charity. Just as impossible is it not to perceive 
that the expectation of a speedy return of Jesus to establish 
an ideal but unearthly society would have tended inevitably 
to minimize the value set upon wealth. The leaders of the 
church, with remarkable exceptions like Augustine, have 
always seen a Christian use of property in the endowment 
of ecclesiastical institutions. But an endowment presup- 
poses a permanent institution, and this was just what the 
eschatology of the apostles made impossible. Their charity 
funds were for immediate consumption, not for permanent 
investments. Even the apostolic injunction to industry was 
primarily called out by an indifference to earthly conditions 
born of the eschatological hope. To erect the apostolic 
teaching into legislation is therefore impossible. As a whole, 
it is not even the expression of fundamental principles. 
Yet none the less — perhaps one should say all the more — is 
it valuable, for it discloses one fundamental fact, viz.: 
Christianity has no economic program. And another great 
fact emerges from the apostolic treatment of a commercial 
age: Economics, like all other aspects of life, is to be con- 



Economic Bearing of Eternal Life 311 

trolled by love — love that helps the less fortunate; love that 
refuses to judge a man by his possession or lack of wealth ; 
love that refuses to make its possessor become through 
idleness a burden upon society. 

But these are not rules. They are the elements of a 
Christianity that is dependent upon no theory of the second 
coming of Christ, or upon any formal messianism. Essen- 
tial Christianity needs no such motives, and may even thrive 
better without them, for it is an expression of the new life 
that is born from the contact of a soul with its God, 
and is nourished and directed by the teaching of Jesus. 

II 

The influence of eschatological hopes in producing the 
conservative spirit shown by the apostles in the matter of 
wealth is even more marked in their words concerning 
politics. Jesus had left no teaching regarding the state. 
The nearest approach he made to the matter was his general 
reply to the Jews, to render unto Caesar the things that are 
Caesar's;* and to Pilate: "Thou couldest have no power ex- 
cept it were given thee from above." ^ Any man who 
attempts to erect a theory of politics upon two such state- 
ments will need considerable imagination, and deserves small 
credence. The fact is that in politics Jesus adopted a 
thoroughgoing policy of laissez-faire, refusing to complicate 
his real purpose in life with any consideration of political 
difficulties or reforms. 

The same general attitude seems to have characterized 
the teaching of the primitive church. It is true that, as far 
as one can judge from the early sections of Acts, the first 
Christians judged that they were free to disobey the com- 
mands of the authorities whenever they interfered with 

1 Matt. 22 : 18-22. 

2 John 19:11. In general see Mathews, Social Teaching of Jesus, chap. 5. 



312 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

what seemed to them to be clearly Christian duty/ but 
Jesus himself may be said by implication to have counte- 
nanced the same view, when he told to his disciples that 
they would be brought before kings and governors, for his 
sake, and promised them the aid of the Spirit in making 
their defense.^ But the persecutions which came upon 
the church at Jerusalem were not so severe as to lead to 
any distinct attitude of hostility on the part of the Chris- 
tians, either to the Roman or to the Jewish officials. 

Paul seems to have had a good knowledge of law, both 
imperial and, if one may judge from the niceties of his 
references in his letter to the Galatians, local. He also, 
doubtless, realized the difficulties which beset the man who 
could be represented as in any way dangerous to the Roman 
empire. Yet he knew the advantage of Roman citizenship, 
and, from one point of view, the entire book of Acts is an 
argument for the legitimacy of Christianity because of the 
repeated protection shown Paul by various Roman officials. 
Perhaps it is in part for this reason that he seems to have 
been remarkably courteous in his references to the imperial 
power. He tells the Romans that the state is of divine 
origin,^ and that it is to be obeyed implicity under fear of 
just punishment: "Let every soul be in subjection to the 
higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the 
powers that be are ordained of God." "For for this cause 
ye pay tribute also ; for they are ministers of God's service, 
attending continually upon this very thing." And this of 
an emperor like Nero ! Similarly Peter in addressing the 
Christians scattered throughout the empire bade them 
beware of being arrested for disorderly conduct, and to 
"honor the emperor."* At the same time Paul believed 
that all governments were but temporary, and that the rulers 

1 See the words of Peter and John, in Acts 4 : 19. 

2 Mark 13: 9-11. 3 Rom. 13: 1-7. *1 Pet. 2:17. 



Economic Bearing of Eternal Life 313 

of this age, both Jewish and Roman/ were to come to 
nought.^ His attitude in general was not in the least, 
therefore, that of co-operation with the state, but that of 
submission to its requirements. In fact, he does not, ap- 
parently, think that the state is a matter in which the Chris- 
tian has any particular share. This appears clearly in his 
strong words to the Corinthians against going into heathen 
courts, with their interfraternal troubles. The state might 
be appealed to for protection, but never to decide the differ- 
ences of Christians.^ It was bad enough that there should 
be dissensions within the Christian brotherhood, but they 
should be settled within the Christian community " by some 
wise man able to judge between brothers." Christians 
should never appear before the heathen judges to plead their 
difficulties with each other. "Do you not know," he asks 
indignantly, as he recalls them to their messianic hopes, 
"that the saints are to judge angels?"* and that "men who 
are unjust cannot inherit the kingdom of God?" 

Here again we evidently have teaching that can be ad- 
justed only to certain distinct historical conditions. Neither 
Peter nor Paul is drawing out a theory of the state. 
Each is endeavoring to show his converts how to live in an 
existing empire while waiting for the coming of the Christ. 
To elevate this work into lasting doctrine is to be untrue to 
historical conditions. It was not that all government was 
right; it was simply a divinely ordered element of a period of 
waiting. The true Christian citizenship was not in earth, 
but in heaven. The heavenly kingdom was not to be set up 
on the earth by any transformation of the Roman empire. 

1 1 Thess. 2 : 16 ; Rom. 9 : 22 ; 11 : 1-36. 

2 1 Cor. 2:6; 15:24; c/. Acts 17: 7. 

3 Acts 28: 19. 

*lCor. 6: Iff. Cf. the saying attributed to Jesus, according to which the 
Twelve were to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, Matt. 19: 8; Luke 
22:30. 



314 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

It was to come suddenly, miraculously. Had Paul returned 
to life at the beginning of the fourth century, there could 
have been no more surprised man than he upon reading the 
proclamation of Constantine. Persecution he could under- 
stand, for it was to be expected that an evil age would pursue 
the followers of the Christ it had killed;^ but an earthly 
government gradually recognizing the civil rights of both 
Christians and heathen, with Christian officials and Chris- 
tian legislation, was something of which he never dreamed. 
It was, in fact, something of which few Christians dreamed 
for two centuries after the apostle's death. 

It is obvious, therefore, that we cannot regard the apos- 
tolic teaching concerning the state as of lasting significance. 
So to treat it would be to end political evolution. To sub- 
mit to governmental oppression has been often the most un- 
christian of acts, and Paul himself was to fall a victim to 
his own refusal to allow his rule of passive obedience to 
extend over matters of conscience. The paradox of the po- 
litical significance of Christianity never was more striking. 
On the one hand stand these directions of the apostle to 
submit to the imperial power, and on the other is the mani- 
fest fact that Christianity, in the same degree as it has been 
unaffected by tradition and authority, has always made 
toward political change. How may the paradox be resolved ? 
By a resort to the facts which condition the teaching. It is 
inconceivable that Paul should have thus taught, had he per- 
ceived a social and political future before Christianity. It 
was because he believed in the cataclysm attending the re- 
turn of the Christ that he urged the Christians to hold aloof 
from the state. Once free a man from this belief, and the 
apostolic teaching is impracticable. And this is precisely 
what happened in the process of time. The Christ did not 
return ; Christianity could not hold itself from politics. It 

ilThess. 1:6; 2:14,15. 



Economic Bearing op Eternal Life 315 

remade the Roman empire; it has remade every state in 
which it has been allowed free scope. 

Has, then, apostolic Christianity no political significance ? 
Before a categorical answer is given one may well decide as 
to which apostolic Christianity is meant: that which deals 
with a religious ethic, or that which deals with a specific 
application of such ethic to an age believed to be rapidly 
moving toward its end? If the latter is meant, apostolic 
Christianity had a political message for its own day ; but 
that message passed with its day. To enforce it again 
would mean to sanction tyranny. If the former is meant, 
then apostolic Christianity has no specific political message. 
Christianity in the teaching of its great apostles as in that 
of its Founder, is a life and not a political system. It may 
have political effects; it cannot have a political program. 
A government is Christian, not when it is a republic rather 
than a monarchy, or a monarchy rather than a republic; or 
when its subjects are either indifferents or martyrs. It is 
Christian when its institutions embody the spirit and are 
regulated by the principles of Jesus. And that this may be 
true, revolutions, despite Paul's word to the Roman church, 
may sometimes be the most sacred of Christian duties. 

Thus again by a resolution of its historical form it is easy 
to discover the fundamental ethic of apostolic Christianity. 
Its highest good is the living of the eternal life of the Spirit, 
and its highest imperative is born of the need of living 
according to the measure of that spiritual life already 



Although, therefore, formally the apostolic ethic was 
dominated by apocalyptic and eschatological concepts, 
essentially it was the life of Spirit — a moral life based upon 
religion. Formally, therefore, the church was a group of 
messianists awaiting a kingdom that never came and indiffer- 
ent to all customs of society except those that were evil; 



316 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

essentially the church was a group of men and women 
endeavoring to let the new religious and ethical life that had 
come to them from God through accepting Jesus as Christ 
express itself in social relations. 

And the life lived. Jesus was greater than the men who 
interpreted him, even when they interpreted him aright, and 
it is he and his work, and the life with God he revealed, that 
formed the strength of historical Christianity. The new 
life must needs be expressed in temporary vocabularies and 
concepts, but it could not be restrained by them. It con- 
quered them — the mighty systems of an Augustine, an 
Origen, a Justin, even of a Paul. And thus inevitably, 
because it was the social expression of a life, the church 
became the parent of a Christian civilization; the Christian 
woman of a Grseco-Roman civilization became the Christian 
woman of a Christian civilization; the Christian family of 
the first century grew into the Christian family of today; 
the Christian fraternity, loyal to an imperial tyranny, became 
the champion of a Christian democracy that, with all its 
revolutionary power, even as yet has not come to its own in 
either politics or economics. 



SUMMAEY 

The results of our investigation may now be summarized 
with a view to their use in constructive processes which lie 
outside our present purpose/ 

1. An impartial comparison of the New Testament litera- 
ture with the contemporaneous and immediately preceding 
literature of Judaism shows an essential identity in the 
general scheme of the messianic hope. In the New Testa- 
ment as in the Jewish literature we find that the general 
scheme of deliverance by God involves the two ages, the two 
kingdoms of Satan and God, the coming of the kingdom in 
the future by cataclysm, the establishment of the day of judg- 
ment, the resurrection of the dead, and the personal Christ. 

2. The New Testament literature modifies this general 
scheme of Judaism only as it is compelled so to do by the 
actual facts connected with the life of Jesus. Thus it recog- 
nizes that the Christ has suffered and died, and that his 
death is vicarious. Its belief in the resurrection is no 
longer a theory, but a generalization of the fact in Jesus' 
own career. Its understanding of a personal Christ is now 
supplemented by a knowledge of the historical career of 
Jesus as a preacher and exponent of divine love as well as 
sovereignty. The new Christianity also magnifies the Spirit 
— the actual interpenetration of the divine and human per- 
sonalities. At the same time such elements of the older 
hope as are not affected by these facts appear in the New 
Testament as a part of the hope of the coming kingdom to 
be established by Jesus. The new messianism of the New 
Testament is essentially eschatological, a matter of hope. 

1 This constructive work has been sketched by me in various numbers of Christen- 
dom, Vol. I (1903), and will be found further developed in my forthcoming book, The 
Gospel and the Modern Man. 

317 



318 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

3. This identity between an older and a later expectation 
shows that, in so far as the Christian messianism is not con- 
trolled by the actual facts of the career of Jesus, it is an 
inheritance from Judaism. It is therefore an interpretative 
concept which, like the cosmological concepts of the time, is 
without a basis of experience — the means of expressing and 
interpreting facts of experience and of history. This inter- 
pretation as used by Jesus of himself becomes the expo- 
sition of a consciousness of a divine personality, and as used 
of Jesus by his disciples is the ultimate valuation of a per- 
sonality they recognized as the exponent of God. This 
personality rather than its interpretation is, especially in its 
two-fold historical revelation of God-in-man and of the 
resurrection, the first great essential of the Christian gospel. 

4. In the case of those Jews who could see in Jesus such 
a personality as would warrant their interpreting him in 
messianic — i. e., in ultimate — terms, there followed a gen- 
uinely moral adjustment with God which resulted in a radi- 
cal experience of the divine Spirit. This spiritual life, 
which was correlated with the expected messianic future and 
the immortal life, is an indisputable matter of experience, 
and one that is regarded (with varying emphasis) by the 
New Testament writers generally as the evidence of the cre- 
dibility of their messianic hope: in particular as the basis 
for their confidence in their acquittal in the coming judg- 
ment, and for their assurance of their participation in a 
resurrection similar to that of Jesus, and in the joys of the 
expected glory. This new life, rather than its interpreta- 
tion, is the second essential verity of the Christian gospel. 

5. For constructive purposes it is necessary to distin- 
guish between the facts of the life of Jesus and of Christian 
experience, on the one side, and their interpretation and 
exposition in the formulas of messianism, on the other. The 
latter are seen to be pedagogic in the sense that messianism 



Summary 319 



was the great channel by which the fundamental verities 
were valued and brought to a generation under the control 
of the messianic expectation. We should not be justified in 
saying that the interpretation was necessarily incorrect. It 
will be efficient, however, only with those in whose apper- 
ception it already exists, and the New Testament itself con- 
tains abundant evidence of a process of redefinition of the 
messianic interpretation of Jesus for the sake of those who 
needed some more philosophical valuation of his divine per- 
sonality. A definition is thus at once the result, the expres- 
sion, and the cause of an ever increasing vital faith. 

6. The history of the Christian community as found in 
the New Testament indicates clearly that the new life result- 
ing from faith in Jesus and the consequent actual inter- 
penetration of the human and divine personalities, was 
checked in its expression by the survivals of Jewish mes- 
sianism in the Christian communities. But it could not be 
and was not destroyed. The fundamental impulse of that 
life is one of self-sacrificing love like that of God, and this, 
rather than an inherited eschatology, turned out to be the 
dominant element of the new religion. Its history modified 
the messianic expectation and gave to some of its terms 
new definitions born of the philosophical apperception of 
western peoples. Such redefinition, so far from being a 
loss, was inevitable and beneficent to believers who were not 
Jews. It furnished mediating concepts and valuations 
which enabled the new converts to bring themselves into the 
same relationship with God that the Jewish messianic con- 
cept had enabled the Jews to attain. But the Christian life 
itself, and the real nature of faith, were not changed. Both 
grew in the same proportion as men came to God through a 
supreme definition of Jesus. 

7. We have thus suggested the method presupposed by 
any theological reconstruction that in any true sense is loyal 



320 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 

to the historic Gospel. The theologian must be a historian. 
There must be, first, a precise interpretation of the Gospel 
as it stands in the New Testament, in its own terms and 
from its own point of view. Second, there must be a dis- 
crimination between the messianic and kindred interpretative 
formulas and concepts, on the one hand, and, on the other, 
the facts in the records of the life of Christ and of Chris- 
tian experience which fair-minded criticism, psychology, 
and sociology will regard as assured. Then, third, there 
will be the presentation of these facts, through the use of 
such interpretative and pedagogical concepts as will do for 
today what the various concepts of the New Testament did 
for their day. 

Such a method judges historical facts by genuinely his- 
torical criteria, and therefore distinguishes between the 
essential and purely economic elements of Christianity 
without abandoning scientific limitations. From it there 
must result a new confidence and appreciation of that his- 
torical gospel which gave rise to faith rather than was 
caused by faith. For while the method will recognize to 
the full the fundamental verities of Christian experience, 
it also will give full value to historical facts. In these it 
will find data for the same moral stimulus and the same 
religious hope they have always aroused during the centuries 
of Christian history. On the one side, this method avoids 
that assertion of the perpetual authority of interpretative 
concepts and that dogmatism which have always proved 
fatal to the spontaneous and persuasive expression of the 
Christian spirit; and, on the other hand, it avoids that 
mysticism which belittles the historical facts which really 
have made Christian assurance possible. Such an historical 
method prepares the way for religious psychology and leads 
to a theology at once scientifically positive in its reliance 
upon objective facts, consonant with the known laws of per- 



Summary 321 



sonality and historical criticism; it conserves every essen- 
tial fact and implication of the gospel as it was preached by 
Jesus and Paul, and revitalizes that Christian hope of 
deliverance from sin and death that has been the great power 
of historical orthodoxy. 

Unless we mistake greatly, there is room for such a 
theology, at once critical, experiential, historical, revering 
Jesus as the divine Way rather than the divine End, domi- 
nated by a conviction of immortality, and insistent that 
humanity needs to be saved from sin and suffering, and that, 
by sharing in the divine life revealed in Jesus, humanity 
can be carried, both generically and individually, to the next 
and, because spiritual, higher stage of that process which is 
the expression of the eternal will of God. Not an interpreta- 
tive concept born of an abandoned cosmology and a per- 
sistently political conception of God, but the eternal life 
born of God through the mediation of faith in Jesus as his 
revelation — that is the eternal element in Christianity. 
And such a life is possible for the man of any age who will 
allow the facts of the gospel to control his estimate of himself 
and his possible destiny, his conduct toward others, his faith 
in Jesus, and his trust in a revealed God. To make these 
facts dynamic in reason and will, he may use whatever world- 
view he may regard as the modern equivalent of messianism, 
or whatever terms he may regard as supreme definition of 
that divine Personality whom the first Jewish believers 
called the Messiah. 

In a word, to remove or to allow for messianism is not to 
destroy the essentials of the gospel — the personality, the 
teaching, and the resurrection of Jesus ; a rational faith in God 
as Father ; a certainty of divine forgiveness ; an experience of 
the eternal life ; an assurance of a complete lif ebeyond and 
because of death. It is rather to make them more intel- 
ligible, more convincing, more certain, and more dynamic. 



INDICES 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Acts : criticism of, 138 f . 

Adam : " first " and '' second," 192, 199. 

Adoption, 207, 287. 

Ages, two: an element in Jewish mes- 
sianism, 52; in teaching of Jesus, 71; 
in speeches of Peter, 141; in 1 Peter, 
151 ; in James, 154; in Revelation, 156, 
in Paulinism, 163; in Hebrews, 237. 

Akiba, 20, 54. 

Alexandea, 26. 

Amos : Day of Jehovah in, 21. 

Angels, evil, 36, 37, 39, 40; to be judged, 
218. 

Angels, good, 39. 

Annihilation of the wicked, 49, 50; 
not in Paulinism, 203. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, 28. 

Apocalypse, "little," of Matt., chap. 
25, 101. 

Apocalypse of Baruch : criticism of, 45 ; 
messianic hope of, 45 f . 

Apocalypses : rise of, 21 f . ; due to the 
Day of Jehovah modified by Hellenistic 
influences, 22; Babylonian influence 
in, 23. 

Apocalyptic element in the teach- 
ing OF Jesus: theories concerning, 
74 f. 

Assumption of Moses: messianism of, 
44 f. 

Atonement : early form of doctrine, 154; 
in Paulinism, 195 f. 

Babylon: influence of on apocalyptic, 

23. 
Baptism of John : messianic significance 

of, 65 ; of Jesus, 88 f. ; a symbol, 220. 
Birth of Jesus, 88, 288, 233. 
Bath Qol, 90. 

C^SAEEA Philippi : incident of, 96. 

Charity : in apostolic churches, 306 f . 

Christ: term not used by Jesus, 106; 
force of, determined by that of "■ King- 
dom of God," 114; as an expression of 
the self-consciousness of Jesus, 126 f. 
(See Messiah.) 

Christian : force of word, 263. 

Christianity, apostolic: not revolu- 
tionary, 275; nor ascetic, 279. 

Church: origin of conception, 263; or- 
ganic conception of, 269; and society, 
272. 

Churches: composition of, 261, 262; rise 
of, 264 f. ; organization of, 266 f., 269 f . 

Collegia : and the churches, 264, 276. 



Communism: not in apostolic Chris- 
tianity, 304 f. 

Critical presuppositions concerning 
the synoptic gospels, 58 f. ; critical 
analysis of Mark, 13, 229 f. ; concerning 
Acts, 138 f . 

Cybele : worship of, 256. 

Daniel : knowledge of, among Jews, 20 
n. ; resurrection in, 24; messianism of, 
31. 

Day of Jehovah: general history of 
belief in, 20 f. ; in Amos, 20; in Zepha- 
niah, 20; in Ezekiel, 21; relation to 
messianism, 22. 

Deacons, 268. 

Deaconess, 268. 

Death: the punishment of sin, 184; 
borne by Jesus the Christ, 196. 

Demoniacs : interpret Jesus, 94. 

Divorce: apostolic teaching concern- 
ing, 297. 

Dispersion, the: influence and impor- 
tance of, 256 f. 

Earth : to be renewed, Eth. Enoch, 35. 

Economic teachings of the apostles, 
302 f. 

EccLESlASTicus : reference to immor- 
tality in, 24. 

Elders, 266 f. 

Elijah : return of expected, 29, 54 ; John 
refuses identification with, 66'. 

iJnoc/i (Ethiopic) : character of, 34; 
messianic hope in ground work (chaps. 
1-36, 72-104), 35 ; in dream visions (chaps. 
83-90), 36 f. ; in visions, 39 f. 

Enoch, Secrets of (Slavonic) : messianic 
hope of, 45. 

EscHATOLOGY : appearance of, 24 ; truth 
of, 122; place of, in teaching of Jesus, 
117 f . ; of Paul, 175 ; based on knowledge 
of risen Jesus, 199 f . ; of the synoptists, 
229 f. ; in John, 244; check of expression 
of regenerate life, 286, 310. 

Esdras, Fourth: messianic hope of, 45. 

Eternal life, 123; In Paulinism, 212 f., 
223; in Fourth Gospel, 245. 

Exile : effect on messianic hope, 7. 

Ezekiel: ideal kingdom of, 6; Day of 
Jehovah in, 22. 

Faith: in Paulinism, 194; ethical as- 
pects of, 209 f . 

Family, the: in apostolic teaching, 
289 f ., 298, 299. 

Felix : disorders under, 17. 



325 



326 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



Gessius Florus, 18. 

Gospels, synoptic: critical examina- 
tion of, 57 f., 225; messianism of, 227. 

Hebrews, epistle to: criticism, 236; 

messianism in, 237 f. 
Hell : divisions of, 50. 
Hellenism: in Judea, 9; an element in 

apocalyptic, 22. 
Herod I : messianism under, 14. 
HosEA : messianic hope in, 5. 

Idumeans, 19. 

Immortality: appearance of hope in, 
24; restricted to members of the king- 
dom, 29; restricted to the righteous, 
49, 50 ; denied by Sadducees, 50 ; taught 
by Pharisees, 51. 

Idols : Christians and, 282 f . 

Incarnation: in Paulinism, 191. 

'' In Christ," 220. 

Isis : worship of, 256. 

James, epistle of : criticism, 155. 

Jerusalem: to be capital of messianic 
kingdom, 36. 

Jesus : messianism of, compared with 
that of Judaism, 71-74, essential ele- 
ments of, 120 f . ; teaching on the 
present kingdom, 67-69, 80-82; on the 
eschatological kingdom, 69 f . ; harmony 
of the two conceptSj 74-82; messianic 
self-consciousness of, 84-119; periods 
of his messianic work, 115-17 ; death of, 
118 ; in what sense the Christ, 129 f . ; 
vicarious death of, in primitive Chris- 
tianity, 148, in 1 Peter, 153, in Paulin- 
ism, 170 f., in synoptic gospels, 232; 
birth of, 228, 233; resurrection of, 234 
(see Resurrection); in heaven, 235; 
High-Priest, 239 f . 

John the Baptist : messianism of, 62 f. ; 
questions Jesus, 95. 

John, epistles of, 248. 

John, gospel of, 59 f., 243; critical ques- 
tions as to early messianic faith in, 
84-87. 

John of Gischala, 18. 

John Hyrcanus, 26 ; in messianic hope, 
33. 

Jubilees, Book of: messianic hope in, 40. 

Judas of Gamala, 15. 

Judea : messianic attempt in, after Re- 
turn, 8, 9. 

Judgment : in Eth. Enoch, 35, 37 ; two 
judgments, 53; in teaching of Jesus, 
73 ; in speeches of Peter, 142 ; in 1 Peter, 
152; in James, 157; in Paulinism, 165, 
218 ; in Hebrews, 237, (See also Day of 
Jehovah.) 

Justification : in Primitive Christian- 
ity, 142 f. ; in Paulinism, 193 f . 

Kingdom of Christ, 76 f., 165. 
Kingdom of God : meaning of the term, 
68 n.; among Zealots, 15; to come by 



cataclysm, 54; to be Jewish, 53; in the 
preaching of John the Baptist, 64; in 
the teaching of Jesus, 67-83; definition, 
82; present and social, 67-69; eschato- 
logical, 69 f., esp. 73; relations of the 
two concepts, 74 f . ; modifications given 
the term by Jesus, 108-14; in speeches 
of Peter, 143 ; in 1 Peter, 152 ; in James, 
154; in Revelation, 156; in Paulinism, 
164 f., 167; in Hebrews, 237. 

Law : in Paulinism, 182. 
LOGIA: collection of, 57f. 
Logos : in Fourth Gospel, 247. 
Luke, gospel of : 57 f ., 228. 

Maccabees, First: messianic hope in, 12. 

Maccabees, Second, 13. 

Mark, gospel of, 57 ; chap. 13, 229 f . 

Marriage : apostolic teaching concern- 
ing, 292 f . 

Matthew, gospel of, 57 f. 

MiTHRA : worship of, 256. 

Messiah: not in all Jewish messianic 
literature, 3, 44, 45, 54; in Ethiopic 
Enoch, 37, 38, 29 ; as the Son of man, 39 ; 
in Psalms of Solomon, 43; in Apoca- 
lypse of Baruch, 45; in 4 Esdras, 45; 
reign of, limited, 53; Jesus as Christ, 
73, 84-119 ; in what sense was Jesus re- 
garded as Christ? 86; evidence that 
Jesus considered himself the Messiah, 
84-tl9; eschatological, 114; periods in 
Jesus' life as, 115; in speeches of 
Peter, 144; in 1 Peter, 153 f. ; in Paulin- 
ism, 168 f., 189 f. ; in Hebrews, 238; use 
made by Paul of concept, 174 f . ; rein- 
terpretation of term in Hebrews, 239 f.; 
in Johannine writings, 246 f. (See also 
Messianism, Pre-existence.) 

Messianic self-consciousness of 
Jesus: 84-119; objections to, 84 f.; de- 
fined, 89; distinguished from prophetic 
inspiration, 91 f., 127; an evidence of 
incarnation, 126 f. 

Messianism : defined, 3; correlative with 
nonism, 3; in Hebrew literature, 4 f. ; 
in Hosea and prophets, 5; after the 
Exile, 6; in Ezekiel, 6; original ele- 
ments of, 10; two forms of later, 11; 
revolutionary, 11-20; in 1 Maccabees, 12; 
in Sibylline Oracles, 12, 33, 46; under 
Herod I., 14; of Zealots, 15 f. ; of Theu- 
das, 16; relation to Day of Jehovah, 
20 f . ; appearance of doctrine of im- 
mortality in, 24 ; of Pharisees, 27, 33, 
43 f.; of Judith and Tobit, 29; of 
Daniel, 31 f . ; under later Asmoneans, 
32 ; of Ethiopic Enoch, 34 f . ; of Book of 
Jubilees, 40 f . ; of Psalms of Solomon, 
41 f.; of Assumption of Moses, 44; or 
Apocalypse of Baruch, 29, 45 f . ; of 
4 Esdras, 45 f . ; Slavonic Enoch, 45 ; 
mixture of political and transcendental 
elements in, 48; involves the resurrec- 
tion of the righteous, 51; essential 
elements in that of apocalyptic litera- 
ture, 52, 53 ; of Jesus compared with 
that of Judaism, 71-74; essential ele- 



Index of Subjects 



327 



ments of, 120 f. ; of primitive Chris- 
tianity, 137 f. ; in speeches of Peter, 
138 f . ; in 1 Peter, 151 f . ; of James, 154 f . ; 
of Revelation, 156 f. ; of Paul. 163 f. ; of 
synoptic sospels, 227 f. ; in Hebrews, 
237 f . ; in Johannme writings, 244 f . ; in 
2 Peter and Jude, 249; a check to ex- 
pression of eternal life, 286, 288; sig- 
nificance of to theology, 317 f . ; essential 
and interpretative elements in that of 
Jesus, 119-33. (See also Messiah, Jesus.) 
V0U5 : in Paulinism, 180. 

Paulixism: pharisaic messianism of, 
163 f. ; modification of same, 169 f . 

Parousia of Cheist: in teaching of 
Jesus, 117; in that of Paul, 171 f.; in 
Mark ch. 13, 229 f. ; effect of the hope 
of, 286. 

Petee, fiest epistle of: criticism, 
150; messianism in, 151. 

Petee : messianic confession of, 96, 97 ; 
messianism in speeches of, 141 f. 

Phaeisaism : in Jerusalem church, 143. 

Phaeisees : origin of, 25 ; political po- 
sition of, 26; messianism of, 27, 33; 
political laizez faire of, 43 ; belief in 
immortality and the resurrection of 
the righteous, 50. 

TTveu/aa: in Paulinism, 179. 

Pee-existence of Cheist, 190 f., 240. 

Peophetism: messianic hope in, 5; 
Jesus' appreciation of, 124 f. 

Peostitutiox : attitude of apostles 
toward, 281. 

Psalnis of Solomon: messianic hope in, 
13; details of messianic hope, 41 f. 

Reconciliation : in Paulinism, 206. 

Retuen : messianic hope of, 7 ; messianic 
hope after, 24. 

Resueeection : in Enoch (Eth.), 38; as 
an element of Judaism, 49 : taught by 
Pharisees and denied by Sadducees, 
49-51 ; an element of the messianic 
hope, 54; in teaching of Jesus, 73; of 
Jesus, 130, 1.32; in speeches of Peter, 
144 ; in 1 Peter, 152 ; in Revelation, 158 ; 
in Paulinism, 168 f.; as a part of sal- 
vation, 187; in Hebrews, 238. 

Revelation of John: criticism, 155; 
messianism of, 156 f.; ethical elements 
of, 161. 

Rich : early suspicion of, 308 f . 

Sabizitjs : worship of, 256. 
Sadducees : on immortality, 50. 



Sanhedein, 26. 

Salvation: first use of, in Christian 
sense, 142; not universal, 149; content 
of term in Paulinism, 182, 185 f., 204. 

<rapf : in Paulinism, 178. 

Satan: kingdom of, 28; in Jubilees, 40; 
belief in, due to Parsic influences, 52 ; in 
teaching of Jesus, 72; in speeches of 
Peter, 142 ; in James, 156 ; in Paulinism, 
163; in Hebrews, 237. 

Secrets of Enoch, see Enoch. 

Seeapis : worship of, 256. 

Seevant of Jehovah, 6. 

Sheol : as hell, 50. 

Sibylline Oracles: messianic hope in, 12, 
30,46. 

SiCAEII, 16. 

SiEACH, SON OF : see Ecclesiasticus. 

Simon ben Shetach, 26. 

Sin: in Paulinism, 177 f., 182 f.; punish- 
ment of, 184. 

Slaveey: not abolished by apostles, 280. 

Son of God: term not used by Jesus, 
106 ; in Hebrews, 240. 

Son of Man : in Daniel, 31, 102 f. ; as a 
self-appellation of Jesus, 102-6. 

Spiritual body, 182 f., 200 f. 

Spieit, Holy : in primitive Christianity, 
147 ; the cause of the resurrection of 
Jesus, 147, 198; of the resurrection of 
Christians, 198; gifts of, 210, 212 f. ; as 
source of organization of the church, 
268; love the fruit of, 284. 

State: apostolic teaching concerning, 
311 f. 

cT-w/u-a : in Paulinism, 180. 

Theudas, 16. 
Temptation of Jesus, 91. 
Temple : cleansing of, 99. 
Tongues : speaking with, 147. 

Wisdom liteeatuee : origin of, 22. 
Wisdom of Solomon : resurrection in, 49. 
Women : apostolic teaching concerning, 
296 f. 

Yeqek haea, 182. 

Zadduk, the Phaeisee, 15. 

Zealots : rise of, 15 ; messianic hope of, 

17. 
Zechaeiah : first apocalyptist, 23. 



INDEX OF REFERENCES 



I. OLD TESTAMENT 



Genesis— 

2:17 184 

3:19 184 

6:2 28 

6:2-4 296 

Exodus — 

4:22,23 47 

Leviticus — 

20:20 152 

Numbers — 

25:1-15 294 

31 : 16 294 

Deuteronomy — 

14:1,2 47 

19 : 10 152 

20:16 152 

1 Samuel — 

16:18 Ill 

2 Samuel — 

7:14 47 

17 : 8 Ill 

1 Chronicles — 

17:13,14 47 

22:10 47 

28:3 Ill 

Psalms — 

2:2-4 4 

2:7-10 4 

2:7 46,47 

45 4 

72 4 

72:8 Ill 

89:20-37 47 

110 4 

Ezra — 

7:12 44 

Nehemiah — 

10:29-31 8 

Isaiah — 

2:2 151 

2:2-4 5 

4:2-6 5 

5:8 286 

8:16-18 5 



Isaiah — 
9:2-7 
10:5 . 
11:1-9 
11:4 . 
19:19-25 
24-27 
26:1-19 
30:23f. 
35:5,6 
42:1 . 
44:28 
45:1 . 
52:7 . 
52:13 
53:12 
60:1-22 
64:1 . 
65 : 20-22 

Jeremiah • 

7 : 1-15 

31 : 31-34 

33:17-22 

Ezekiel — 
11:14-20 
26:7 . 
30: 2 f. 
34:12 
37:21-28 
38:2 . 
39:8 . 
39:16 

Daniel - 

2:37 

2:45 

3:54 

7:8 . 

7:13 

7:20-26 

7:56 

8:23-25 

9:25 
11 

11 : 21-45 
12 
12 : 1 f , 



20, 



101 



104 



7 

5 

47 

''I 

24 

38 
95 
146 

7 

7 

146 



8 
146 



44 

22 

22 

6 

157 
22 

157 

44 
19,20 



31 

,105 

31 

105 

31 

20 

20 

31 

20 

24,166 



Daniel — 

12:2 30 

Hosea — 

2:19-23 5 

11:1 47 

14:1-8 ...... 5 

Joel — 

2:18-27 22 

2:28,29 8 

Amos — 

2:6-8 21 

3:9-15 21 

5:10-13 21 

6:4^8 21 

Micah — 

2:10 142 

3:1 142 

4:1 142,157 

4:1-5 5 

4:5,6 149 

Zephaniah — 

1:2-18 21 

2:4-15 21 

3:8,14-20 .... 21 

Haggai — 

1:13 8 

2:6-9 8 

2:7 237 

2:23 8 

Zechariah — 

2:1-5 8 

2:10-13 8 

3:8 8 

4:6-10 8 

6:11,12 8 

8:1-8 8 

8:12 8 

8:20-23 8 

9-14 23 

12:5-9 30 

14 3a 

9:9,10 31 

Malachi — 

3:23,24 29> 



II. 

1 Maccabees — 

1:53 17 

2:31-38 17 

2:42-70 32 

2:57 12,29 

4:46 12 

5:55-62 32 

5:62 13 

7:9 42 

7:13,14 12 



THE LITERATURE OF JUDAISM 

1 Maccabees — 2 Maccabees 

9:27 42 6:11 . 

9:19 42 6:26 . , 

14:41 12 10:6 . . 

17:26 42 12:42-45 , 

12:43,44 

2 Maccabees — 14 : 15 

7:9,11,14,19,23,29, 

35-37 . , . .13,29 Judith — 
7:14 29 16:17 

329 



17 
29' 
17 
29' 
13 



29,33, 



330 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



Tohit — 
13:11-13,16-18 . .29,33 

14:6,7 29,33 

13:1 68 

Ecclesiasticus — 

1 : 5, 6 146 

4:15 53 

15:14 182 

17:31 182 

21:11 182 

32:18 33 

33:1 f 33 

33 3 

35:18,19 24 

37:25 29,33 

44:13 29 

47:11 ... 24,29,33 
48:10,11 . . . 24,29 
50:23,24 . . . 24,33 

The Assu mption of Moses — 

1:12 27 

1:14-17 27 

1 : 18 44, 53 

8 ....... 28, 44 

9:4-7 17 

10 29,166 

10:1 . . . . 28,29,92 
10:1-10. . . 44,50,68 

10:8 17 

10:9,10 17 

12 53 

Slavonic Secrets of Enoch 

9:lf 45 

10:3-6 45 

18:1-6 45 

19:1-5 45 

22:8 179 

30:8 -.180 

32 45,157 

33 157 

133:2 45 

42:2 188 

42:3 . . . . . . -221 

46:3 45 

48:8,9 45 

55:2 157 

61:2 f 45 

65:6-10. ..... 45 

65:8-10 45 

Ethiopic Enoch — 

1:4 35 

1:6-9 35 

1-36, 72-104 .... 35 

1-36 35 

5:9 35 

6-11 36 

10:6, 12 f 28,35 

10:10 35 

10:17 35 

10:20 36 

10:20-22 36 

12:1 36 

14:5 28 

15:8-12 28 

16:1-4 28 

16:1 . 35 

19:1 28,35 

21 50 

21:10 28 

22 35 

22:4, 11 f 35 



thiopic Enoch- 


_ 




Ethiopic Enoch- 


- 




22 : 1-14 50 


69:26,29 104 


22:11,13 








. 36 


70:3,4 . 








. 54 


25:4 . . 








. 35 


70:1 . . 








. 104 


25:5 . 










. 35 


71 : 16 . 








. 39 


25:6 . 










. 35 


71 : 16, 17 








. . 54 


25:3,5,' 










. 68 


72:1 . . 








. 204 


27:2,3 










. 50 


84:4 . . 








. 36 


27:3 . 










. 68 


86:88 . 








. 36 


27:4 . 










. 35 


89 . . 








. 27 


37:4 . 










. 221 


89,90 . 








. 36 


37:71 










. 39 


90:15,21-2^ 


: 






. 28 


39:3-12 










. 54 


90:1 f. . 








. 28 


39:5-12 










. 39 


90:18-20 








. 36 


39:6 . 










.263 


90:18-20 








. 37 


40 . 










. 27 


90:20 . 








. 157 


41:1 f. 










. 68 


90:21 . 








. 160 


41:2 . 










. 39 


90:24-27 








. 37 


41:9 . 










. 28 


90:26-27 








. 50 


45:3 . 










. 29 


90:27-29 








. 157 


45:3-5 










. 39 


90:28,29 








. 37 


45:4-6 










. 39 


90:30-33 








. 37 


46:1,2 










. 39 


90:37,38 








37,146 


46:2-4 










. 104 


91:12-17 








. 37 


46:16 










. 181 


93 . . 








. 37 


47:3 . 










39, 157 


97:6 . . 








. 157 


48:2 . 










. 104 


99:5 . . 






164, 166 


48:3,6 










. 39 


99:15 . 








. 37 


48:8 . 










. 166 


99:11 . 








38,50 


48:9 . 










. 50 


100:5 . . 








. 38 


48:10 










. 166 


102 . . 








. 37 


49:3 . 










. 146 


103:4 . . 








. 38 


49:12 










. 39 


104:5 . . 








. 37 


50 . 










. 39 


105:2 . . 








38,46 


50:2 . 










. 166 


108:3 . . 








38,50 


50:4 . 










. 39 


108:11,12 








38,71 


51 : 1, 2 










39,71 




51:4 . 










. 39 


Psalms of Solomon — 


52:4 . 










. 68 


1 42 


53: If. 










. 28 


1:5-9 . 








. 13 


53:3 . 










. 28 


2:3,5,8 








. 13 


53:6,7 










. 39 


2:7,8,17 








. 42 


54:1,2 










. 50 


2:30,31 








. 42 


54:4 . 










. 28 


3:13-15 








. 42 


54:5 f. 






28 


3f 


, 71, 72 


3:16 . 








. 42 


55:4 . 










. 53 


4:5 . . 








. 13 


56:1 f. 










. 28 


5:21 . 








. 68 


57 . 










. 39 


7:2 . . 








. 13 


58:3 . 










. 39 


8:9-14 . 








. . 13 


60:8-23 










. 54 


10:9 . . 








. . 143 


61:7,11 










. 146 


12:7 . . 








. 143 


61:8 . 










. . 53 


13:10 . 








. . 42 


61:12 










. 54 


14:1-3,7 








. . 42 


62 . 










. 165 


14:6 . . 








. . 42 


62:2 . 










39,53 


14:10 . 








. 221 


62:5 . 










. 39 


15:11 . 








. 42 


62:5-9 










. . 104 


17 . . 








. 42 


62:7 . 










. 39 


17:4 . . 








. . 68 


62:12,K 










. 50 


17 : 25, 26 








. . 43 


62:15 










. 179 


17:27 . 








43,47 


62:16 










. 221 


17:28 . 








. . 43 


62:63 










. 39, 49 


17:30 . 








43, 207 


63:6 . 










. 49 


17:31 . 








. 43 


63:6-9 










. 39 


17:32 . 








. . 43 


63:10 










. . 71 


17:33 . 








. . 43 


63:11 










. 104 


17:34 . 








. . 157 


64 . 










28,39 


17:32-42 








. 263 


65:4 . 










. 90 


17:35,36 








. . 43 


65:10 










. 221 


17 : 37 . 








. 44 


68 . 










. 28 


17:36-39 








. . 33 


68:2 . 










. 146 


17:39 . 






. 47, 278 


69:29 










. 39 


17:42 . 






43, 146 


69:27 










. 53 


18 . . 








. . 42 



Index of Refekenoes 



331 



Psalms of Solomon — 

18:7-9 263 

18:8 146 

Book of Jubilees — 

1:29 41 

4:26 41 

5:10 28 

10:8 .... 28,40,52 

17:15 90 

17:16 52 

23 116 

23:1-23 41 

23:11 41 

23:15 40 

23:26-28 41 

23:26,27 40 

23:29 28,40 

23:31 41 

31:18-20 41 

Wisdom of Solomon — 

3:1-3 49 

3:1-5 142 

3:8 53 

3:9,17-14 .... 49 

3:23,25 180 

6:5 68 

10:10 68 

15:2,3 49 

Sibylline Oracles — 
iii, 655-97,710-42,755- 

60, 766-72, 930 . . 30 
iii, 97-807 .... 46 

286 53 

652-794 .... 33 
iv, 180 ... 159, 181 

V, 431 263 

Philo — 
Quis Rer. Div. Her. 146 

Nobil 146 

Deealog 146 

Testaments of the XII Pa- 
triarchs — 
Abraham 93: 10 . .218 
Asher 1 ... 182 

2:3 . . . 68 
Levi 18 ... 29 

19 ... 52 
Dan. 5 .29,52,68 

Naph. 8 ... 29 
2:3 . . . 52 
Issa. 6 ... 52 

The Ascension of Isaiah — 
3:73-5:1 .... 48 

4:14 68 

7:22 53 

7:12 72 

8:26 53 

9:10-13,18,24,25 . 53 

10:12 72 

11:40 53 

Apocalypse of Baruch — 

2:34,35 29 

4:2-6 .... 45,157 

5:1-9 29 

6:24 117 

9:3 117 

13:1 90 

13:8 178 

14:18 27 

20:6 144 



Apocalypse of Baruch — 


4Esd7-as — 




22:1 ....... 90 


13:32 . . 


... 46 


23:4 . . . 






. 153 


13:36 


. 47, 157 


27:2,7 . . 






. 117 


13:37 . . 


... 46 


30 . . . 






. 46 


13:37,38 . 


... 47 


32:2 . . . 






. 157 


13:39-47 . 


... 47 


32:2-4 . . 






. 45 


13:51 . . 


. . .105 


32:6 . . . 






. 46 


13:52 . . 


... 46 


36:10 . . 






. 159 


14:9 . . . 


. . 35, 46 


39 ... 






. 48 


14:9 . . . 


... 46 


39, 40 . . 






. 46 


19:26 . . 


. . . 157 


40:3 . . . 
42:7f. . . 






. 46 
. 159 


JOSEPHUS — 




44:8-15. . 






. 46 


Antiquities of the Jews — 


44:12 . . 






. 46 


iv, 6:5 


... 20 


48:29 . . 






. 218 


X, 10:4 


. . 19,20 


48:32,34,37 






. 117 


11:7 


. .4^,54 


48:50 . . 






. 46 


xii, :4 


... 9 


49:50 . . 






. 181 


4:11 


... 22 


50:2 . . . 






. 46 


6:2 


... 17 


51 : 1-12 . . 






. 46 


xiv, 7:2 


. . .259 


51:3 . . . 






. 46 


9:2 


... 14 


51:8 . . . 






. 46 


9:3 


... 15 


54:12 . . 






. 221 


9:4 


... 26 


57:2 . . . 






. 221 


15:4, 


5 ... 14 


70 ... 






. 165 


XV, 1:1 


... 26 


70:2-8 . . . 






. 117 


8:3, 


4 ... 14 


70:7-10. . 






. 46 


10:4 


. . 14, 26 


72:1-6 . . 






. 46 


xvi, 9:1, 


2 ... 14 


73,74 . . 






. 46 


xvii, 2:4 


. . 13, 26 


74:3 . . . 






. 46 


6:2, 


4 ... 14 


83:1,4 . . 






. 117 


10:5 


... 15 


85:5 . . . 






. 46 


xvii, 11 : 1, 


2 . .18, 26 


85:10 . . 




. 221 


xviii, 1:1 


. . 16,27 




1:1, 


6 . .15, 27 


4Esdras — 


1:3 


. . .181 


2:39 179 


1:3- 


5 ... 50 


4:35 . . 




. . 54 


4:1 


... 16 


5:3 . . . 




. . 48 


5:2 


... 62 


5:8 .. . 




164, 166 


8:1, 


6 ... 15 


5:9 . . . 




. . 117 


XX, 5:1 


... 15 


5:11,12 . 




. . 48 


5:2 


... 16 


5 : 16 . . 






. 99 


5:3 


... 16 


6:5 . . . 






. 47 


XX, 8:5 


... 16 


6:8-10. . 






. 48 


8:6 


... 16 


6:13 . . 






. 90 


The War of i 


he Jews — 


6:20 . . 






. 157 


ii, 4:2,3 


... 14 


6:20-23 . 






. 172 


5:lf. 


... 14 


6:21 . . 




] 


L64, 166 


8:1 


. . 15,27 


6:26 . . 






. 46 


8:2-14 


... 50 


6:55,59 . 






. 27 


8:14 


. 50, 181 


7:11 . . 






. 27 


12:1,2 


... 16 


7:26 . . 






47, 157 


13:2,3 


... 16 


7:28,29 . 






38,46 


13:4 


... 16 


7:29,30 . 






. 47 


13:5 


... 17 


7:31-35 . 






. 47 


13:6 


... 17 


7:32 . . 






. 159 


14:1 


... 17 


7:33,34 . 






. 54 


17:2 


... 18 


7:48 . . 






. 221 


17:4 


... 18 


7:75f. . . 






. 181 


17:6 


. . 16,19 


7:85 . . 






. 153 


17:9 


... 19 


7:95 . . 






. 153 


20:1-3 


... 18 


8 : 52-59 . 






. 47 


21:1,2 


... 18 


10:27f. . . 






. 157 


iv, 3:6-8 


... 19 


10:55 . . 






. 47 


3:9 f. 


... 27 


12:11 . . 






. 48 


4:1,5 


. . 18, 19 


12:31-34 . 






. 47 


5:2 


. . 18,26 


13:2 . . . 






. 46 


5:4,5 


... 19 


13:3 . . . 




46,105 


5:5 


... 18 


13:5 . . . 




46,105 


6:1 


... 19 


13:12 . . 




. . 105 


6:3 


... 19 


13:25 . . 




46, 105 


7:2 


... 16 


13:26 . . 






. 46 


9:5 


... 16 



332 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



JOSEPHUS — 

The War of the Jews — 



vi, 5:2 








. 19,20 


5:3 






. . 19 


5:4 






. . 14 


6:3 






19,54 


vii, 8:lf. 






. . 16 


Against Apion — 
li, 39 258 


Matthew - 


1:1 106 


1:18 . 








. 106 


1:18-25 








. 232 


1:22,23 








. 229 


2:1-12 








. 227 


2:1-23 








. 233 


2:5,6 . 








.229 


2:15 . 








. 229 


2:17,18 








. 229 


2:23 . 








. 229 


3:2 . . 








72, 227 


3 : 7-12 








. 63 


3:14 . 








. 233 


3:15 . 








72,233 


3:16,17 








. 89 


4:1 . . 








. 90 


4:1-11 








. 91 


4:8,9,11 








. 72 


4:13-16 








. 229 


4:17 . 








. 72 


4:23 . 








. 227 


5:3-12 








. 112 


5:32 . 








. 297 


5 : 44-48 








. Ill 


6:10 . 








72, 228 


6:31-34 








. 309 


6:33 . 








. 72 


8:11,12 








. Ill 


8:17 . 








. 229 


9:13 . 








. 229 


9:37 . 








. 70 


10 : 23 . 




7 


), 100, 117 


10:24,25 






92, 117 


10:32 . 






. . 74 


10:40 . 








. 92 


10:42 . 








. 228 


11:2,3 . 








. 64 


11:2-19 








. 64 


11:2 . . 








. 106 


11:11,12 








68,71 


11:14 . 








. 73 


11 : 18, 19 








. 103 


11 : 19 . 








. 109 


11:27 . 








. 92 


12 : 10, 11 








. 109 


12:17-21 








. 229 


12:22-37 








. 72 


12:26 . 








. 72 


12 : 28 . 






68 


, 72, 92 


12:28,32 








. 90 


12:32 . 








. 71 


12:40 . 




10] 


U 1 


13, 228 


12:41,42 . 








. 91 


13:14,15 








. 229 


13:24-30 . 








68,73 


13:24.29 








. 70 


13:35 . 








. 229 


13:36-43 . 








68,73 


13:39 . . 








. 70 



JoSEPHUS — 

Life — 

5 26 

7 18,26 

13 18,26 

65 15 

Talmud — 
Aboth .... 68, 221 
Berachoth . .6,68,221 

III. NEW testament 

Matthew — 

13:41-43 73 

13:44-47 . . . .70,72 
13:47-50 . . . .68,73 

14:28 73 

14:28 78 

14:62 .... 117,119 
16:13 .... 106,228 
16:16 ... 107,225 

16:17-19 97 

16:18 263 

16:20f 97 

16:21-23 148 

16:27,28 . . . 73,119 

16:27f 76 

17:10-12 73 

17:24-27 .,.:.. . .227 
17:32-^. ~. -. . . .227 

18:17 263 

18:23 70 

19:8 313 

19:9 297 

19:16 221 

19:28 .71 

19:27-29 73 

19:28 73 

19:28f 76 

20:1 70 

21:4, 5 . . . . 98,229 

21:9 98,228 

22:1-14 Ill 

22:2 70 

22 : 14-33 110 

22:18-22 311 

22:23-33 73 

23:2 108 

23:5f 109 

23:10 92 

23:23-25 109 

23:34 100 

23:37-39 . . . 100,230 

24:3 228,230 

24:11 16 

24:15 229 

24:24 16 

25 73 

25:1 117 

25 : 13 117 

25:41 49 

25:31-46 . . 76,101,186 
25:34,40,41,45. . .101 
26:28 .... 113,232 

26:29 76 

26 : 57-66 . ... 102 

26:64 76 

27:9 229 

27 : 52, 53 227 

28:1-20 234 

28:9 235 

28:19 Ill 



Talmud — 








Bereshith Rabba . 6 


Chagigah .... 90 


Pea . . . 




. . .178 


Pesitta . 




. . . 53 


Sanhedrin 




. 53, 68, 81 


Shekualin 




. . . 6 


Siphre 48& 




. . . 6 


Sota . . 




. . . 6 


Mark- 

1:1 ... . 89,106.227 


1:1-3 . 




... 63 


1:4 . . 






. .227 


1:6 . . 






. . 63 


1:7 . . 






. . 106 


1:8 . . 






. . 146 


1:9-13. 






. . 91 


1:10 . 






. . 225 


1:12 . 






. . 90 


1:14-20 






. . 92 


1 : 16-20 






. . 225 


1:24 . 






. . 94 


1:34 . 






. . 106 


1:38 . 






. .227 


1:39 . 






. . 227 


2:15,16 






. . 109 


2:17 . 






. . 229 


2:18 . 






. . 93 


2:18-22 






. . 110 


2:23-27 






. . 109 


3:2f. . 






. . 108 


3:4 . . 






. . 229 


3:11 . 






94,106 


3:15 . 






. . 82 


3:22 . 






. . 72 


3:23 . 






. . 72 


3:23-27 






. 92, 95 


3:24 . 






. 72,90 


3:28 . 






. . 71 


3:30 . 




9 


), 225, 228 


3:37 . 






. . 72 


4:12 . 






210, 229 


4:15 . 






. . 72 


4:17 . 






. . 117 


4:26-29 






68, 70, 73 


4:31 . 






. . 101 


5:7 . . 






94,106 


6:15 . 






. . 12 


7:lf. . 






. . 109 


7:8-13. 






. . 109 


7:19 . 






225, 232 


8:27 . 






106, 228 


8:27-30 






. . 96 


8:28 . 






. . 12 


8:29 . 






107, 225 


8:31-33 






. . 97 


8:33 . 






. . 97 


8:34-39 






. . 97 


8:38 . 






. . 103 


8:31 . 






. . 101 


8:31-9:1 






. . 113 


8:32f. . 






. . 232 


9:1 . . 






72, 117 


9:9,10 






. .148 


9:11 . 






. 73,97 


9:13 . 






. . 227 


9 : 30-32 






113, 148 


9:45 . 






. . 228 


10:1 . . 






. . 93 



Index of References 



333 



Mark- 








10:12 . . . 


. 232,297 


10:11 . . . 


. . . 297 


10:17 . . . 


. . .304 


10:21 . . . 


. . .221 


10:28 . . . 


... 73 


10:28-30 . . 


... 98 


10:30 . , . 


... 71 


10:32-34 . . 


... 148 


10:34 . . . 


. . .101 


10:35-37 . . 


... 97 


10:35-45 . . 


... 98 


10:43 . . . 


. . .117 


10:44,45 . . 


... 103 


10:45 ... 


. 228,232 


10:46-48 . . 


... 98 


11 : 1-10 . . . 


. . 97,98 


11:10 ... 


. . .228 


11:15-19 . . 


... 99 


12:18-27 . . 


... 73 


12:24 . . . 


. . .292 


12:25 . . . 


... 72 


12:35 . . . 


. . .111 


13 . . 73, 76, 100, 229 f . 


13:9-13. . . 


. . .231 


13:4 .... 


. 228,231 


13:4-6, 96-lS 


, 21-23, 


28, 29, 32-37 . . ; 230 


13:9-11. . . 


. . . 312 


13:10 ... 


... 100 


13:7-9a, 14-20, 24-27, 


30,31, 76, 


100, 117, 230 


13:14 . . . 


. 229,231 


13:20 . . . 


. . .229 


13:22 . . . 


... 16 


13:24 . . . 


... 230 


13:24-27 . . 


. 230,231 


13:29 . . . 


. . .231 


13:32 . . 


. . .117 


13:35 . . 


. . .117 


14:24 . . 


. . .112 


14:25 . . 


... 73 


14:53-64 . 


. . .102 


14:61,62 . 


... 73 


14:62 . . 


... 78 


14:61,62 . 


... 87 


14:62 . . 


. . .103 


14:61 . . 


. . .106 


15:1-15. . 


. . .102 


15:39 . . 


... 106 


16:1-8 . . 


. . .234 


Luke — 




1:26-56 . 


. . .232 


1:35 . 




. . .107 


1:46-55 




. 186,233 


1:67-79 




. 186,233 


1:69,71,1 


7 


... 143 


2:1-20 . 




. . .232 


2:21-29 




. . .233 


2:41-50 




... 233 


3:7-9 . 




... 63 


3:10-14 




... 65 


3:15-17 




... 66 


3:21 . 




. 225,228 


3:22 






... 89 


3:38 






... 107 


4:1 . 






... 90 


4:1-13 






... 72 


4:1-13 






... 91 


4:14 






. 90, 228 


4:18 






... 90 


4:41 






. . .106 



Luke — 

5:1-11. . . . 225,228 

6:13 228 

6:30 304 

6:40 91 

7:18-21 64 

7:18-35 64 

7:22,23 90 

7:28 68 

7 : 33, 34 102 

8:12 72 

9:11 72 

9:18 f 228 

10:11 68 

10:13-15 230 

10:17 72 

10:17 82 

10:18 72,82 

10:21 90 

10:22 92 

10:25 221 

11:2 72 

11:14-23 72 

11:20 72 

11:31,32 . . . 91,102 

11:1 93 

11:18 95 

11 : 49 100 

12:8 74 

12:10 90 

12:32 72 

12:33 304 

12:35 117 

12:46 117 

12:49 f 232 

13:llf 72 

13:16 95 

13:22 93 

13:34-35 . . . 100,230 

14:16-30 96 

14:26 292 

15 : 1 109 

16 : 1 f 304 

16:8 72 

16:9 71 

16:16 68 

16:18 297 

17:8 228 

17:20f. . . . 70,72,117 

19:8 210 

19:9 73 

19:10 .... 103,228 
19:38 .... 98,228 

19:39,40 99 

19:41-44 230 

20:34 71 

20:27-38 73 

20:36 ... 47,168,292 

21 : 20 229 

21:5-58 72 

21:28 71 

22:3 228 

22:16-30 73 

22:19 73 

22:28-30 228 

22:30 .... 73,313 

22:31 72 

24:1-53 234 

24:13-27 148 

24:31 235 

24:36 235 

24:36-43 235 

24:51 235 



John — 

1:1-6 62 

1:14 247 

1 : 1-18 247 

1:19-27 66 

1:29 63 

1:30-34 89 

1 : 32, 34 127 

1 : 33 146 

1 : 42 246 

1:46 92 

1:49 106 

1 : 50 245 

2:13-22 . . . . 94 

2:13 f 99 

2:20 99 

2:46 304 

3:3 244 

3:16 245 

3:17 244 

3:18 244 

3:18-21 246 

3:20 92 

3:36 344 

4:4-43 93 

4:35 70 

4:1-3 94 

4:25 246 

4:25,26 106 

4:39 245 

5:6 244 

5:1 f 109 

5:19-21 244 

5:22 244 

5:22-29 244 

5:23 244 

5:24 245 

5:26 245 

5:27 244 

5:28 73 

5:29 .... 73,245 

6 246 

6:29 245 

6:39 73 

6:40 73 

6:40-45 119 

6:40-58 244 

6:44 73 

6:54 73 

7 : 22 f 109 

7:25-27 246 

7 : 25-39 245 

7:40-44 246 

9:1 f 109 

9:22 245 

9:39 244 

10:22-39 245 

10:36 106 

11 : 4 106 

11:25 245 

12:4,5 98 

12:13 98 

12:31 72 

12:36 208 

12:42 245 

12:43 244 

12:50 .... 244,245 

13:12-16 92 

14:1 f 119 

14:30 72 

16:11 72 

16:47 244 

17:3 545 



334 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



John — 




Acts — 










17:12 . . 


.... 208 


13:16 259 


19:11 . . 


.... 311 


13:24,25 62 


20:31 . . 


.... 245 


13:26 . . 142,143,259 


21:20-23 . 


.... 117 


13:38-41 165 


21:22-24 . 


.... 244 


13:43 259 

13:46-48 168 


Acts — 




13:50 259 


1:1-11. . 


.... 235 


14:8-18 283 


1:3 .. . 


.... 143 


15 143,151 


1:6 .. . 


. ... 97 


15:1 112,143 


1:13 . . 


.... 141 


15:5 143,144 


1:15 . . 


.... 263 


15 : 8, 9 211 


1:22 . . 


.... 62 


15:37,39 232 


2 : 14-21 . 


.... 142 


16:1 263 


2:14-36 . 


.... 211 


16:14 259 


2:21 . . 


. . 142,143 


17 260 


2:22,23 . 


.... 148 


17 : 3 190 


2:25-31 . 


.... 146 


17:4 259 


2:27 . . 


. . . .153 


17 : 7 167, 175, 261, 302, 313 


2:33 . . 


.... 142 


17:17 259 


2:35 . . 


.... 142 


17:28 208 


2 : 39 . . 


.... 143 


17:30 175 


2:40 . . 


.... 143 


17:31 .... 165,175 


2:46 . . 


. . . .141 


18:7 259 


3:1 .. . 


.... 141 


18:10 208 


3:6 .. . 


.... 142 


18 : 18 190 


3:16 . . 


.... 142 


19:9 263,264 


3:18 . . 


.... 148 


20:4,5 306 


3:19 . . 


. . . .148 


20:32 211 


3:19-21 . 


. . 142,149 


20:34 .306 


3:21 . . 


. . . .211 


20:35 .... 269,306 


3:22 . . 


.... 146 


21:20 144 


3:37 . . 


.... 142 


21:38 16 


3:40 . . 


.... 142 


22:21 174 


3:44,45 . 


. . 137,305 


23:6 174 


4:8-12 . . 


. . . .142 


24:3-42 72 


4 : 10 . . 


.... 142 


24:15 187 


4:12 . . 


. . 142,143 


24:17 306 


4:19 . . 


. . . .312 


25:1 70 


4:22 . . 


.... 143 


25:1-45 72 


4:23 . . 


.... 263 


25:34 72 


4:27,28 . 


.... 148 


25:41 71,72 


4:32 . . 


.... 305 


26:17,18 174 


4:32-35 . 


. ... 137 


28:19 313 


5:1-11 . . 


. . . .305 




5:3 . . . 


.... 142 


Romans — 


5 : 30-33 . 


. ... 142 


1 185 


5:41 . . 


.... 137 


1:3 . 






171, 192 


5:42 . . 


. ... 144 


1:4 . 


168, 


17 


1, 191, 198 


7:36 . . 


. ... 146 


1:17 






. . 193 


7 : 56 . . 


. ... 105 


1:18 


. 






. . 165 


8:35 . . 


. . . .149 


1:18-32 . 






. 183 


9:2 . . . 


.... 263 


1:19-23 . 






. 272 


9 : 15 . . 


. ... 174 


1:24-32 . 






. 272 


9:20 . . 


. ... 165 


1:29 . . 






. 294 


9:22 . . 


. . 165,190 


2:1-11 








. 165 


10:2 . . . 


. . . .259 


2:1-16 








. 178 


10:9-16. . 


. ... 144 


2:6 . 








. 175 


10:26 . . 


. ... 259 


2:7 . 




16 


5, 168, 175 


10:28 . . 


. ... 144 


2:8,9 






165, 175 


10:36-38 . 


. ... 146 


2:12 






. . 165 


10 : 37 . . 


. ... 62 


2:16 






165, 175 


10:38 . . 


. .89,91,95 


3:5,6 






. . 165 


10:42 . . 


. . 142,152 


3:19 








. 183 


10:43 . . 


. ... 148 


3:20 








. 183 


10 : 44-47 . 


. ... 211 


3:20,21 . 






. 193 


11:17,18 . 


. . . .211 


3:21-31 . 






. 197 


11:26 . . 


. ... 263 


3:22-24 . 






. 188 


12:12 . . 


. . 141,305 


3:26 . . 






. 197 


12:44 . . 


. ... 263 


5:1 . . . 






. 203 


13:5 . . . 


. . . . 232 


5:5 .. . 






. 220 


13:13 . . 


. ... 232 


5:6-8 








. 196 



Romans — 

5:9,10 187 

5:10 199 

5:11 206 

5:12 .... 166,184 
5 : 12-21 . 168, 184, 192 

5:14 166 

5 : 17 166 

5:19 182 

5 : 21 168 

6:3-9 220 

6:5 168 

6:6 181 

6:13 181 

6:14 184 

6:20-23 168 

6:22 168 

6:23 . . 166,168,184 

7:7 f 183 

7:13 184 

7:13-25 183 

7:18 183 

7:22 .... 180,181 

7:23 180 

7 : 24 184 

7 : 25 180 

8:1-13 219 

8 : 1-17 221 

8:2 178 

8:3... 190, 191, 196 

8:9 181 

8:9-11. . . . 221,222 
8:11 .... 202,243 

8:12-17 222 

8:12-25 214 

8 : 14, 15 208 

8:14-17 299 

8:16 179 

8:17 164 

8 : 18 163 

8:18-25 . . . 175,204 

8 : 18-39 165 

8:19-22 287 

8 : 19-23 208 

8:23 .... 172,219 
8 : 23-25 . 175, 176, 261 
8:24 .... 187,220 
8:29 . . 187,197,207, 
208, 214 

8:30 214 

8:32 197 

8:33-39 195 

8 : 34 168 

9:1 221 

9:4 207 

9:13 178 

9:22 313 

10:1—11:32 . . . .285 

10:9 187,190 

10:9,10 194 

11 : 1-36 313 

11 : 25 172 

11:34 180 

12:2 .... 72,163,180 

12:3 193 

12 : 4, 5 269 

12:5 220 

12:6 193 

12:19-21 284 

13:1-7 . . . . 141,312 
13:11 . . 166,171,185 
13:11.12 . . . 165,286 
13:11-14 214 



Index of References 



335 



Romans — 
13:13 . 
14:8 . . 
14:10 . 
14:13-22 
14:17 . 
15:2 . . 
15:17 . 
15:25,26 
15:26-33 
16:3 . 
16:3-6 
16:7 . 
16:9,10 
16:20 



1 Corinthians 



1:2 . 

1:7,8 

1:8 . 

1:15 

1:17 

1:18 

1:20 

1:23 

1:24-28 

1:25 

1:26-28 

2:2 

2:6 

2:6, 

2:10-16 

2:11 , 

2:13-15 

2:14 

2:16 

3:1 . 

3:3 . 

3:5 . 

3:8 . 

3:13 

3:15 

3:18 

3:19 

3:23 

4:1 . 

4:5 . 

4:10 

4:15 

4:20 

5:1-5 

5:3,4 

5:5 . 



5:9 . 
5:9, 10 
5:10 
5:11 
5:13 
6: If. 
6:2,3 
6:9 . 
6:9 f. 
6:11 
6:15 
6:19,20 



7:10, 
7:12 
7:14 



294 
172 
175 

284 
164, 167, 214 

284 
221 



306 
221 
165 
221 

221 
163, 286 



165 



, . 221 

175, 286 

. . 261 

. . 168 

. . 197 

185, 187, 197 

72, 163 

. . 170 

. . 168 

. . 170 

. . 282 

. . 197 

. . 313 

72. 163 

. . 221 

178, 179 

. . 217 

180, 185 

. . 180 

220, 221, 271 

. 220 

. 218 

. 218 

175, 218, 261 

. . .187 

163 

. 163 

. . 218 

. . 218 

165, 175 

. . 221 



. 221 
. 164 
. 217 
. 181 
178, 181, 184, 186, 
187, 270 
. . .294 
. . .282 
163, 294, 308 
. 285,294 
. . .165 
. . .313 
. . .165 
282, 283, 294 
. 164,175 



. . .270 

. . .295 

. . .292 

. 163,293 

. . . 295 

. 232,275 

. . .297 

. . . 275 

. . .297 



166, 



1 Corinthians 

7 : 18-24 

7:25 

7:26 

7 : 26-28 

7 : 27-31 

7:29 

7:31 

7:32 

7:36-40 

7:39 

7:40 

8:1 f. 

8:4 . 

8:6 . 

9 : 1-18 

9:5f. 

9:26 
10:11 
10:14 
10:15-17 
10:16 
10:19,20 
10:22 
10:23 
10:33 
11:1 . 
11:1-6 
11:3 . 
11:10 
11:12 
11:14 
11 : 14-16 
11:24 
ll:25f. 
11:26 
12:1—14 
12:3 . 
12 : 7-11 
12:11 
12:12-27 
12:26 
12:27 
12:28 
13 . 
13:9-12 
14:14 
14:26-40 
14:34-36 
15 

15:2 
15:3 
15:20-22 
15:21 
15 : 22 
15:22,23 
15:23 . 
15 : 23-25 
15 : 24 . 
15 : 24, 25 
15 : 24-27 
15:25f. 
15:26 . 
15 : 28 . 
15:35 . 
15:44 . 
15:44-49 
15:45 . 
15:46 . 
15 : 50 . 
15 : 50-54 
15:51 . 
15:51,52 



176 



181 



. . 277 
217, 293 
164, 166, 293 
172 
277 
171, 280, 286 
163, 280 
. . 280 
. . 296 
295, 296 
275, 295 
283, 284 
283 
191 
307 
295, 296 
278 
163, 166 
283 
270 
306 
283 
283 
284 
284 
284 
296 
181 
296 
296 
163 
276 
196, 306 
113 
286 
213 
188, 194 
. 269 
. 193 
77, 270 
. 171 
. 220 
. 268 
219, 284 
213 
180 
265 
296 
200, 213 
187 
148 
192 
203 
199, 203 
77 
175, 261 
204 
165, 313 
77 
165, 193 
77 
225 
203 
200 
187, 217 
192 
199 
187, 202, 217 
164, 203, 235 
. . .178 
166, 171, 172 
. 188,286 



157 



181, 



1 Corinthians 
15:58 
16:1 . 
16:1-4 
16:3 . 
16:13 
16:22 

2 Corinthians 

1:8 f. 

1:14 

1:19 



1:22 

1:24 

2:10 

2:11 

2:15 

3:8 . 

4:3 . 

4:4 . 

4:7—5 

4:16 

5:1-7 

5:1-8 

5:3 . 

5:5 . 

5:10 

5:15 

5:16 

5:17 

5:18 

5 : 18-20 

5:21 

6:14 

6:16 

7:1 . 

8:4 . 

9:lf. 
11:3 . 
11:7 . 
11:14 
12:7 . 
12:13 
12:20,21 



175 
306 
306 
306 
278 
166, 171, 286 



175 

191 

188, 219 

217 

200 

163 

185, 187 

. 222 

. 185 

72, 163 

. 202 

. 181 

. 172 

. 202 

. 166 

. 188 

. 175 

196, 219 

174 

220, 222 

207 

206 

196 

296 

283 

179 

306 

306 

181 

307 

163 

163 

307 

294 



Galatians — 

1:4 . . . . 72,163,196 

1 : 13, 14 174 

1 : 14 186 

1 : 15, 16 174 

1:18 151 

2:6 190 

2:9 261 

2:9-14 151 

2:9 261 

2:10 306 

2:12 143 

2:14-26 143 

2:15-21 194 

3:1 197 

3:1-6 195 

3:2 211,220 

3:3 178 

3:5 220 

3:7 207 

3:10 197 

3:13 197 

3:14 220 

3:26 207 

3:28 281 

4:4 190 

4:6-15 208 

4:29 178 



336 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



Galatians — 
5:1 . . . 
5:6 .. . 
5:13 . . 
5:16 f.. 
5:16— 6:lf 
5:19 , 
5:20 . 
5:21 . 
5:22 . 
5:22,23 
5:24 . 
6:1 . . 
6:7-9 . 
6:8 . . 
6:10 . 


) 


16 

164 

18 


. . 220 
. . 284 
. . 218 
178, 220 
. .294 
181, 294 
. . 283 
. . 164 
. . 284 
. . 180 
. . 174 
. . 217 
. . 175 
168, 178 
. . 284 

217, 221 
. . 197 
. . 207 
191, 203 
. . 220 
188, 219 
. . 163 
77,290 
3, 182, 208 


Philippians — 

3:19-21 185 

3:20 . . 77,164,186, 
187, 214 

3:19-21 185 

3:21 .... 191,213 
4:5 . . . 166,171,286 

Colossians — 

1:9 217 

1:13 .... 164. 


1 Timothy — 

2:15 . . 
3:lf. . . 
3:8 .. . 
5:14 . . 
6:10 . . 
6:12 . . 
6 : 17 . . 

2 Timothy— 

2:15 . . 
4:1 .. . 
4:10 . . 
4:11 . . 
4:18 . . 

Titus — 
1:2 .. . 
1:7 .. . 
2:9 . . . 
2:12 . . 
3:7 .. . 

Philemon — 
vs. 16 . . 

vs. 24 . . 

Hebrews- 
1:1 .. . 
1:2 .. . 
1:3 . . . 
1:9 .. . 
1:14 . . 
2:4 .. . 
2:9 .. . 
2:9-18 . . 
2:10 . . 
2:13 . . 
2:14 . . 
2:16 . . 
3:1 .. . 
3:2-6 . . 
3:6 .. . 
3:7—4:10 
4:9 . . . 
4:14 . . 
4:15 . . 
5:7-9 . 239 
5:8 . . . 
6:1 .. . 
6:1,2 . . 
6:2 .. . 
6:4 .. . 
6:5 .. . 
6:8 .. . 
6:10 . . 
6:20 . . 
7:5f. . . 
7:18 . . 
7:22 . . 
7:25 . . 
7:28 . . 
8:1,2 . 
8:1-13 . . 
8:4 . . . 
9:10 . . 
9:11 . . 
9:14 . . 
9:15 . . 
9:19-22 . 
9:26 . . 
9:27 . . 
9:28 . . 
10:1 . . . 


. ... 297 
. ... 267 
. ... 267 
. . 296,297 
. . . . 308 
. ... 168 
. ... 163 

. ... 187 


1:16,17 . . . 
1:22 .... 


. 191 
. 172 


. ... 164 
. ... 163 


1:28 .... 


. 172 


. ... 232 


2:5 

2:6 


. 181 
. 190 


. . 164,186 


3:1 


. 214 




Ephesians — 


3 : 1-17 .... 


. 222 


. ... 168 


1:3 . . 
1:4 . . 
1:5 . . 
1:10 . . 
1:13 . . 


3:4 172 

3:5 . . . 283,294,308 

3:6 182 

3:8 294 

3:18 .... - 296 


. ... 267 
. ... 281 
. ... 163 
. ... 168 


1:14 . . 
1:21 . 


3:18-25 . . . 
3:22 .... 


. 298 
. 2X1 


. ... 281 
. ... 232 


1:23 . 
2:2 .. . 


4:1 190,281 

4:10 232 


2:5 .. . 
2:7 .. . 
2:8 .. . 
2:12 . 
3:14,15 
3 : 16 . 


] 
1 


L86, 187 
. 163 

86. 187 
.272 
. 299 
. 181 
. 299 
. 193 
. 268 
. 191 
. 271 
. 270 
. 180 
. 180 

9Q± 


1 Thessalonians — 

1:6 175,314 

1:10 175 

1:10 .... 186,261 
2:9 307 


. ... 142 
. . 237,238 
. ... 240 
. ... 238 
. ... 238 
. ... 243 
. ... 239 
. ... 241 
. ... 241 
. ... 241 
. ... 237 
. . . 238 
. ... 238 
. . . . 2« 
. ... 238 
. ... 239 
. ... 237 
. ... 238 
... 240 
240, 241, 242 
. ... 238 
. ... 261 
. ... 237 
. . 238,242 
. ... 218 
. ... 236 
. ... 218 
. ... 237 
. ... 238 
.... 239 


4:6 .. . 

4:7 . . 


2:12 .... 164,175 
2:12-16 186 


4:11 . 


2 : 14, 15 314 


4:13 . 


2:16 313 


4 : 15, 16 


2:18 163 


4:1-16. 
4:17 . 


2:20 .... 195,261 
3 : 3, 4 166 


4:23 . 
4:31 . 


3:13 .... 175,261 
4 • 4 f . ... 294 


5:3 . . 


294, 295 
, 282, 283, 
294, 308 
182, 208 
296, 298 

6, '^.71 5>Qfi 


4:11 306 


5:5 . . 

5:6 . . 
5:22 . 


4:15 . . 166,171,172, 

173, 188 

4:15-17 . . 73,214,286 

4-16 . . , - 172 


5:23 . 


5:1 


. 286 


5:29,32 
5:30 . 
6:lf. . 




. 270 

. 77 
. 298 
. 281 
. 281 
. 186 
. 278 
278, 286 

. 267 
. 261 
. 175 
. 175 
. . 185 
. . 191 
. . 170 
. . 190 
. . 191 
. . 203 
. . 287 
. . 190 
. . 171 
. . 174 
. . 172 
. . 283 


5:2 

5:5 

5:8 


. 171 

. 208 
. 186 


6:5 . . 
6:9 . . 
6:10-18 
6:llf. . 
6:12 . 

Philippians 


5:12,13 . . . 
5:23 .... 

2 Thessalonians — 

1:5 

1:7 

1:8, 9 . . . . 


. 307 
179, 286 

164, 175 

175, 286 

. 175 


1:1 . . 
1:6,10 


1:9 .... . 
2 • 1-10 .... 


. . 185 
. . 185 


. ... 239 
. ... 239 


1:6 . . 
1:10 . 

1:28 . 


2:7-9 .... 

2:8 

2:9 


. . 166 

. . 278 

. 163 


.... 239 
.... 238 
. . . .238 


2:5 . . 


2:10 .... 


. . 185 


. . . .239 


2:5-11 . 


2:13 .... 


. . 186 


. ... 239 


2:6-8 . 


3:1, 2 . . . . 


. . 166 


. . . .237 


2:7 . . 


3*7, 8 . . . . 


. . 307 


. . 237, 239 


2:9-11 . 
2:10 . 


3:9 

3 ■ 10 . 


. . 307 
.^7 


, . 240, 242 
. . 237,239 


2:11 . 
2:20,21 
3:5 


1 Timothy— 

1:1 175 


. ... 239 
.... 237 
.... 237 


3*11 


1-10 282 


.... 238 


3:19 . 


1:16 168 


.... 239 



Index of References 



337 



Hebrews — 








10:5 237 


10:11-18 






. . .239 


10:25 . 






. 237,286 


10:26 . 






. 218,237 


10:27 . 






. . .218 


10:29 . 






. . . 243 


10:31 . 






. . .237 


10:32-34 






. . .236 


10:32-38 






. 238,242 


10:36-38 






. . .237 


10:37 . 






. . .286 


11:7 . . 






. . .237 


11:38 . 






. . . 236 


11:39,40 






. . .242 


12:2 . . 






. . .238 


12:2,3 . 






. . .241 


12:14 . 






. . .284 


12:16 . 






. . .282 


12*22 






. . . 238 


12:24 . 






. . .239 


12:26,27 






. . 237 


12:28 . 






. . 237 


13:1 . . 






. . 242 


13:2 . . 






. . 284 


13:4 . . 






282, 295 


13:5 . . 






. . 309 


13:9 . . 






. . 236 


13:10-12 






. . 238 


13:14 . 






. . 237 


13:17 . 






. . 308 


13:18,19 






. . 236 


13:20 . 






238, 239 


13:23 . 






. . 236 


13:25 . 






. . 236 


James — 


1:12 154 


1:25 . 






. . 218 


2:1 . . 






. . 154 


2:5 . . 






. . 155 


2:8 . . 






. . 155 


2:11 . 






. . 155 


2:12 . 






155, 218 


2:14 f.. 






. .'155 


3:18 . 






. . 154 


4:5 . . 






. . 155 


4:12 . 






. . 154 


5:3 . . 






. . 142 


5:4 . . 






. . 309 


5:7,8 . 






. . 155 


5:9 . . 






. . 286 


5:10 . 






. . 154 


1 Peter - 


1:2 .154 


1:3 .. . 






. . 153 


1:4 .. . 






. . 152 


1:5-7 . . 






. . 151 


1:5-10. . 






. . 152 


1:7,8 . . 






152, 153 


1:11 . . 






. . 153 


1:19,20 . 






. . 151 


1:23 . . 






. . 153 


2:5-9 . . 






. . 273 



1 Peter — 

2:12 152 

2:13 .... 141,277 
2:17 .... 141,312 

2:18,19 153 

2:18-25 281 

2:22 152 

2:23 152 

2:24 153 

3:1 296,298 

3:7 296 

3:9 152 

3:18 153 

3:19 f 153,227 

3:22 153 

4:3 283 

4:5, 6 . . 152,153,154 

4:7 151,286 

4:10 154 

4:11 .... 153,154 
4:13 .... 152,153 

4:14 154 

4:16 277 

5:1 153,267 

5:1,4 152 

5:4 153 

5:8,9 152 

7:17 152 

2 Peter — 

2:1-22 249 

2 : 4-11 250 

3:3-9 249 

3:7 287 

3:10-13 249 

3:1-10 144 

IJohn — 

1:1-4 248 

1:6 246 

1 : 17 287 

1 : 19 218 

1:22 248 

3:1,2 248 

3:3 248 

3:9,10 248 

3:15,24 248 

3:18-21 248 

3:24 248 

4:12-16 248 

4:15-21 248 

5:5 248 

5:8 249 

5:19 287 

5:21 283 

2 John — 
vs. 7 243 

Jude — 

vs. 9 249 

vss. 11-16 249 

vs. 14 249 

vss. 20, 21 250 

1:4 160 

1 : 13 105 



Revelation- 


- 








2:5 161 


2:6 . 










. 294 


2:7 . 










L60, 161 


2:10 










.160 


2:11 










. 161 


2:14 










. 283 


2:15 










. 294 


2:17 










. 161 


2:20 










283, 294 


2:21,25 










.161 


2:26 










. . 161 


2:29 










. . 161 


3:1 . 










. . 160 


3:5 . 










. . 161 


3:6 . 










. . 161 


3:8 . 










. . 161 


3:11 










. 161 


3:13 










. 161 


3:19 










. 161 


3:22 










. . 161 


4:4 . 










. 160 


4:5 . 










. . 160 


4:10 










. . 160 


5:6 . 










. . 160 


6:9 . 










. . 277 


7:lf. 










. . 158 


7:4-17 










. 158 


7:10 










. 161 


7:14 










. 161 


9:30 










. 283 


11:13 










. 158 


12:7 f. 










. . 225 


12:9 . 










. . 156 


12:10 










. 161 


12:12 










. 156 


12:17 










. . 161 


13:8 . 










. 161 


13:18 










. 277 


14:4 . 










. 295 


14:12 










. 161 


14:13 










. 161 


14:14 










. 105 


17 . 










. 159 


17:8 . 










. 161 


19:1 . 










. 161 


20:1 . 










. 157 


20:2 . 










. 156 


20:4,5 










. 158 


20:6 . 










. 157 


20 : 7-10 










. 157 


20:llf. 










. 157 


20:12 










. 161 


20:15 










. 161 


21 . 










L57, 158 


21:1 . 










. 158 


21:5 . 










. 158 


21:8 . 


1 


58, 


16 


1, 


282, 283 


21:10-12 










. 156 


21:12 










. 158 


21:27 










. 161 


22:14 










. 157 


22:15 


1 


57, 


16 


1, 


282, 283 



IV. MISCELLANEOUS 



[GRACE- 




Juvenal — 




Pbrsius — 


Satires,!, i , . 


. 258 


Satires, 3:12-16 . 


. 258 


Satires, 5 ill^lU 


1, 142 f. 


. 258 


14:96-106. 


. 258 





258 



338 The Messianic Hope in the New Testament 



Tacitus — 




Barnabas — 




Justin Maetye- 




Hist., \. 13 . . . 


. 14 


19 


, . . 309 


Trypho, 31 .' . 


. . 258 






19:8 


. . .305 


122, 123 


. . 6 


Pliny— 








Apology, 26 . . 


. . 258 


ie«ers, X, 43 . . 
X 94 


. 302 
302 


Didache — 
1-6 . . . 


. . 307 


Tebtullian — 








4:8 .... , 


. . .305 


De Pudicitia . 


. . 236 


Suetonius — 








Okigen — 




Ccesars Vest., 4 . 


. 14 


Ignatius — 
Smyr. ... 


. . . 89 


Ag. Celsus, i, 55 


. . 6 


1 dement- 




Magn. ... 


. . . 89 


Eusebius — 




is 


. 267 


Eph 


. . . 89 


Hist. Ecc. . . 


144,236 



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